



DUUK 



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M-joiii \» /5^^ 



COl'YRKillT DKf'OSlT. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR : 

Sonnets of Heredia rendered into 

English, Third Edition ; 

Moods and other Verse, out of print ; 
Visions and other Verse. 



INTO THE LIGHT AND OTHER VERSE 



NTO THE LIGHT 

AND OTHER VERSE 

By EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR 




SAN FRANCISCO 

ISe &tanIe?=1apIot Comiians 

MCM VI 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
APR 5 1906 
Copyright Entry 

CLASS QJ XXc. No, 

fLf.f 2 ^ ^ 

COPY B. 



^ .Copyr 






^1 

I 



Copyright 1906 

by Edward Robeson Taylor 



Printed by 
Clje fetanltp-BCaplor Companp 

San Francisco 



TO THE MUSE 

MY LONG-LOVED MUSE, DO THOU 
ATTEND ME KINDLY NOW: 

LEAD ME ALONG. THE DEVIOUS PATHS OF RHYME 
TO HELICON'S UNFAILING SPRINGS, 
WHERE POESY WITH SPLENDENT WINGS, 

AND DOWERED TO SOAR BEYOND THE REACH OF TIME, 
HER BANNERED GLORY FLINGS 
ABOVE ALL COMMON THINGS, 
AND WHERE THROUGHOUT HER SACRED GROVE 
MY FANCY'S TROOP IS FREE TO ROVE. 
OH, CHIDE ME NOT THAT I SHOULD DARE 
TO BUILD SUCH CASTLE IN THE AIR, 
WHEREFROM MY DREAMS WERE WONT TO PEER 
ON LIFE'S VAST MAZE THIS MANY A YEAR, 

IN HOPE THAT THEY IN SOME EMBODIED STRAIN 

MIGHT ASK THY GREAT APPROVAL NOT IN VAIN; 
FOR SHOULD NO THOUGHT OF ME OR MINE 
THY UNRELENTING BOSOM STIR, 
THOU STILL WOULDST BE TO ME DIVINE, 
I STILL WOULD BE THY WORSHIPPER. 



THE POET TO HIMSELF 

O FOOLISH ONE, WHY CRAVE THE ORPHEAN LYRE? 

CANST THOU AWAKE ITS H EART- DELIGHTI NG STRAINS, 

OR HOPE, WITH ALL THE CUNNING OF THY PAINS, 

TO SHAKE THE SOUL WITH THUNDERS OF THINE IRE? 

AND SHOULDST THOU STRIKE THE CHORDS OF ALL DESIRE, 
AH, WHO WOULD PAUSE TO LISTEN?— GREEDS, AND GAINS, 
AND OSTENTATION'S PRIDE, CHOKE VIRTUE'S VEINS, 
WHILE SPIRITUAL THINGS UNWEPT EXPIRE. . . . 

SUCH WORDS LACK SPICE OF WISDOM: WOULDST THOU DARE 
TO GIVE LIFE'S ROSE IN KEEPING OF DESPAIR, 
OR FEAR THE MUSE HER MEMORIED HAUNTS MAY FLY? 

THE WORLD IS ALWAY BETTER THAN IT SEEMS, 
AND IF, INDEED, A MESSAGE IN THEE LIE, 
SOME ONE IS HOPING FOR IT IN HIS DREAMS. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

DEDICATION: TO THE MUSE ... v 

THE POET TO HIMSELF . vii 

UNDER THE PINE ..... 1 

Into the Light ..... 3 

Not. Dead ...... 21 

Impromptu in Response to the Question: What is 

Poetry? ...... 22 

Meditation ...... 23 

The Generations .24 

Ghosts ...... 25 

Night and Day .26 

Hope ...... 26 

The Soul • .... 27 

Four in One ■ . . . . 27 

Death .28 

Not for Death ..... 28 

Vacancy ••••.. 29 

Question ...... 30 

O Moment Stay! .31 

Light in Darkness ..... 32 

The New Year ...... 33 

Memory's Bells .... 34 



IX 



UNDER THE PINE — Continued 

Dream Music ...... 35 

A Day with Music ..... 36 

The Divine Order ..... 37 

The Divine Harmony .... 38 

To a Marble Statuette of Beatrice . . 39 

Beauty ...... 40 

Life's Blend ...... 41 

The Poem 42 

Life's Jewels ...... 42 

Riches ...... 42 

Ambition ...... 43 

Murmurings in the Darkness ... 44 

The Mystic ...... 45 

Love Not Dead 45 

Optimism ...... 46 

In All the Days ..... 47 

The Strangeness of it . .48 

Remembrance ..... 49 

Resolution .50 

Not Envy ...... 50 

Life and Death . . . • 51 

Imprisoned 51 

The True Course ..... 52 



UNDER THE PINE — Continued 

The Happiness of this World ... 53 

Christmas Bells ...... 54 

UNDER THE BAY ..... 57 

On Looking at a Picture of Wordsworth 59 

To Tennyson ..... 60 

Swinburne ..... 61 

To Walter Savage Landor ... 62 
Heredia Dead .63 

To James Russell Lowell .... 64 

Professor Joseph Le Conte at Yosemite, July 4-6, 1901 65 

Henry George ..... 66 

Pope ....... 67 

Christopher Smart ..... 67 

Oscar Wilde ...... 68 

The Music of Words .... 69 

UNDER THE CYPRESS ..... 71 

Invocation to the Muse .... 73 

From Joy to Woe ..... 74 

The Kiss of Peace ..... 74 

Dreams ....... 75 

With Sorrow ..... 76 

The Fog Rolls In . .77 

Mourn Not ...... 78 



» XI 



UNDER THE CYPRESS — Continued 

To Death ...... 79 

The Tomb and the Ros^e .... 80 

In the Cemetery of 81 

Reconciliation ..... 83 

RAMBLINGS ....... 85 

Boat Song 87 

My Secret ...... 88 

The Lady's Answer .... 89 

My Lady Sleeps .90 

Song ....... 91 

The Rose .91 

In the Convent Garden .... 92 

A Waif ....... 93 

An Opera Cloak 94 

In Memory ...... 95 

Come Near Me When I Sleep ... 96 

Cleopatra ...... 97 

The Condor's Sleep .... 98 

My Summer ...... 99 

The Eagle ...... 100 

The Cock .101 

The Orchard ..... 102 

Love ....... 106 



Xll 



RAMBLINGS — Continued 

From a Winnower of Grain to the Winds 107 
The Homeric Combat .108 

Sunbright Hercules ..... 109 

Nature ....... 110 

The Axe ..... Ill 

In Union Square, San Francisco 112 

In Springtime ..... 113 

In Time of November ..... 114 

An Arizona Cactus ..... 115 

Under a Pine at the Grand Canyon 116 

To the Grand Canyon .... 117 

In the Petrified Forest, Arizona 118 

A Lizard of the Petrified Forest 119 

The Sawmill ...... 120 

In Jefferson Square, San Francisco 121 

Man and Tree ...... 122 

To the Grand Canyon of the Colorado 123 

With Memory ...... 124 

A Remembrance of Autumn Woods 125 

My Bohemia ...... 126 

To Beauty ...... 127 



Xlll 



RAMBLINGS — Continued 

To the Owl that alighted above the Picture of 
Athens hung in one of the Lecture Halls of 

Rutgers College 128 

Ulysses and Circe ..... 129 

Icarus ....... 130 

The Deepest Poem ..... 131 

The Brook ...... 132 

Rome ...... 134 

The Russian Bear ... 135 

IN A STUDIO ..... 137 

Sound and Color ..... 139 

The Shepherdess .... 140 

Dawn ....... 141 

Evensong ... 142 
On Watching the Artist Paint a Picture of Mount 

Shasta ...... 143 

A Vision ...... 144 

The Return from the Raid ... 146 
The Mountain .146 

Prayer ..... 147 

Promise ....... 148 

The Unfinished Portrait .... 149 

WilUam Keith ...... 160 



XIV 



ENVOY ...... 151 

The Poet to his Pegasus .153 

Song Its Own Reward .... 154 

The Passion for Perfection .... 155 

Pine Not, nor Fret ..... 156 



XV 



PREFATORY NOTE.— Of the pieces in this vol- 
ume " Into the Light " was published in its first 
edition of 1,500 copies in the latter part of 1901, 
the copies of that edition being now about exhausted. 
Since its publication it has been revised in places 
and nine stanzas have been added to it. "A Cactus," 
" Under a Pine at the Grand Canyon," " To the 
Grand Canyon," " In the Petrified Forest," and "A 
Lizard of the Petrified Forest," were published in 
Out West; "To the Owl that alighted above the 
Picture of Athens," in The Independent (N. Y.) ; 
" Sound and Color " and " Man and Tree," in the 
San Francisco Examiner, and " The Orchard," in 
the San Francisco Chronicle. A few of the pieces 
have been taken from " Moods and Other Verse," 
now out of print. All the remaining pieces are here 
published for the first time. 



UNDER THE PINE 



INTO THE LIGHT 

Let us choose to us judgment; let us know among ourselves 
what is good. — Job xxxiv-4. 

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
knowledge. — Psalms xix-2. 

What dost thou see when without thee thou lookest, O all- 
searching Man? 
Life, ever life, amid changes by multiplex rhythms controlled — 
Rhythms that throb without end in immensity's vastness of space, 
MingUng and blending in chorus which sings of the Order Divine. 

What dost thou see when within thee thou lookest, O all- 
searching Man? 
Thee as a spirit and atom of all the mysterious whole; 
Giving as well as receiving, bound to the infinite past. 
Made by and making thy future that stretches eternally on. 



I 

And now, dear friend, weary and sick at heart 
With what thou hast been and with what thou art. 

Come, let us sit beneath this centuried pine. 
Where Nature's self may heal thee of thy smart. 

II 

For here there broods such feeling of repose. 
Such soothing quiet all around us flows. 

That for the blessed time life seems to hush 
Its doubtful triumphs and its certain woes. 

Ill 

Ah, well-a-day, what heart has not its pains. 
Its grievous losses, incommensurate gains. 
And as result of all the strenuous strife. 
What little profit at the last remains! 

IV 

By thoughts like these we are at times oppressed; 
But who the loss or profit can attest? 

Our glass we see through darkly, and full oft 
What seemed the worst was in the end the best. 

[ 5 ] 



V 
In these unclouded heavens no stars we see, 
Yet all roll there in sovran majesty; 

So, when thy sky seems reft of every star, 
In quenchless light they still may live for thee. . , . 

VI 
The bubbles dancing on convivial wine, 
The restful dewdrops on the procreant vine. 
But symbolize each being life has known: 
All vanish at a breath and leave no sign. 

VII 
We meet insatiate death at every turn; 
Life's brightest candles flicker as they burn; 

While lone oblivion pours forevermore 
Her flood lethean from exhaustless urn. ... 

VIII 
Thus sayest thou, as has been said before 
In various iteration o'er and o'er; 

But canst thou mete or weigh the least of lives? 
And if earth's work be done, why askest more? 

[ 6 ] 



IX 

Lament not o'er the failures of the Past, 
Nor fondly hope thy Future may be cast 

Where victory waits thee with unfading bay ; — 
The Present only is thy first and last. 

X 

Nor seek to blot the record of thy years 
With self-condemning, uneffectual tears ; 

But let thy page be such that day by day 
Still less and less the evil there appears. 

XI 

Beat all thy moments into links of gold. 
Whose uncorroding chain may serve to hold 

Thy anxious spirit fast to Faith's firm rock. 
As Doubt's engulfing waves are round thee rolled. 

XII 

It cannot matter, for we are so small 
A part of the immeasurable All, 

Thy evil demon whispers in thine ear 
When pleasures lure thee as when shadows fall. 

[ 7 ] 



XIII 
But know that every eon which has gone 
Before thee since life's earhest breath was drawn 

Has helped compound thee into what thou art — 
A deathless spirit moving on and on ; 

XIV 
And that the tiniest creature's slenderest strain 
In loneliest wilderness is not in vain, 

But makes inseparable part of all 
That fills Divinity's unending reign. 

XV 

All things and elements are kin to thee. 
As are the cones of this imperial tree 

To every member of the host of stars — 
Ay, even to those no telescope may see. 

XVI 

Couldst thou but only feel, without surcease. 
Though woes and dangers round thee still increase, 

Thyself as part of the eternal scheme, 
Thy soul might anchor in the port of Peace — 



8 



XVII 

The eternal scheme whose order as divine 
Thou mayst not question, with its blazing sign 
Above and round thee, and its rhythmic note 
Forever ringing in that heart of thine. 

XVIII 
How full, how rich is life ! Dear God, did we 
But ope our eyes and dare with faith to see 
Thy splendors hearted with untainted joys, 
Each pulse would thrill with sudden ecstasy. 

XIX 

O garniture of glory round us spread, 
By Beauty's crystal streams forever fed. 
Divine expression of the mind divine. 
Unchanging, changing, fleeing yet not fled! 

XX 

O Music, throned within the heart of things, 
What tribute to thee every being brings! 

What waves of thine through space's vastness roll ! 
What notes of thine great Nature ever sings ! 



9 ] 



XXI 
Mysterious all; yet that proud sun which prints 
Upon yon mountain-peak such splendrous tints, 

Holds not one secret greater than the grass 
Which at our feet its wonders humbly hints. 

XXII 
The Sphinx outlives the myriad ones who ask 
The cause and reason of their burdening task, 

And with her silent lip and stony gaze 
Still ever wears impenetrable mask. 

XXIII 

And though the crown of life sat on her brow, 
While hottest blood her bosom did avow, 

With her great head encasing brain as great, 
She would be answerless e'en then as now. , . . 

XXIV 
How very little is the most that's known; 
By what sore travail man has slowly grown; 

What luring heavens have led him to despair; 
What dreadful hells have made his soul their own! 

[ lo ] 



XXV 
What is he more than atomy that wings 
Its predetermined flight mid other things 

That breathe a moment, then unheeded pass 
To where no note of being ever sings? . . . 

XXVI 
Wail as thou wilt, but can thy loudest cry 
Be more than vain, inconsequential sigh? 
And art thou blinded so by Evil's bane 
As not to see the Good which blazes nigh? 

XXVII 
Restore thy vision, and as now the prayer 
Of parting day stirs all the silent air. 

With thine own soul the covenant renew, 
Thy cross through Duty's thorniest to bear. 

XXVIII 
For 'tis no mystery that some task is thine. 
For thee to make it, if thou wilt, divine. 

And that while work remains for thee to do. 
Do it thou must, nor weaken nor repine. 

[ II ] 



XXIX 
Whether it be what men deem high or low 
'Tis not for thee to question or to know. 

But that thou knead thy heart's best blood in it 
Is thy concern, nor cease to make it so; 

XXX ' 

For shouldst thou slight it in the least, or pause 
To quaff the nectar of the world's applause. 

Or nurse, self-satisfied, a base content. 
Thou art a traitor to thy dearest cause. 

XXXI 

And dost thou dream of an immortal life 
Where work is not and happiness is rife; 

Where Passion dies upon the bed of ease, 
And Pain wields nevermore its dreadful knife? 

XXXII 
'Tis thus to deem the structure of thy soul 
Can be completed as around it roll 

This life's few, fleeting years; 'tis thus to make 
A senseless, fairy bliss thy farthest goal. 



XXXIII 

If endless life be thine how canst thou be. 
When disembodied from thy flesh, set free 

From all thy past — thy spirit newly made? 
Death cannot work such miracle in thee. 

XXXIV 
What age on age, what power on power, 
Conspired ere this wee. unpretending flower 

Could hold its sweet communion with us here. 
To heap the measure of this golden hour! 

XXXV 

No single stroke can alter or create : 
Continuous flows the river of thy fate. 

As it will flow with all its good and ill 
Through Death's dark-mantled, unimpeding gate. 

XXXVI 
Thou art a spirit now no less than when 
Thy form has vanished from the sight of men; 

Thy home the Universe, where none may dare 
To bound the farthest limits of thy ken. 

[ 13 1 



XXXVII 
But if by wasting of thy natural might 
Thy soul has added nothing to its height, 

How durst thou hope for perfectness or ease. 
Or with celestial raiment to be dight? 

XXXVIII 
And didst thou know none other life could be 
Than this which holds such treasured wealth for thee, 

Thy Duty's star would burn as bright as though 
It lit thy path to immortality. 

XXXIX 

Words cannot save thee though they be of gold 
Beyond all value earth has ever told. 

And though with collocation's art they seem 
From out divinest sources to have rolled. 

XL 

The generations ever come and go 
On vasty seas of blended joy and woe. 

But what the deep-hid meaning of it all 
It matters not for curious thee to know. 



14 



XLI 

It only matters if thy conscience sleep. 
Or thou the golden hours in bondage keep. 

Or if some deed, or word, or look of thine. 
Should cause the angels of the soul to weep. 

XLII 

Enjoy the day, as Horace says, is well; 
To lounge and drink with Omar, as we tell 

Our loves to every moment of the day. 
Is with enchantment for the time to dwell : 

XLIII 
But these are condiments and not the bread 
Wherewith life's feast is nourishingly spread. 

And deem thou not with diet such as theirs 
A starving soul in bounty can be fed. 

XLIV 

Know thou the Gods are good to him who bears 
Unvanquished stoutly on ; who in despair's 

Entangling web weaves many a thread of hope 
While all the stars light him that boldly dares. 

[ 15 ] 



XLV 

What matters if the temple's ruin lies 

With none for mourner save the grass which sighs 

Where once the goddess undisputed reigned 
Amid the joyance of her people's cries? 

XLVI 

Why shouldst thou waste unnecessary tears 
Because along the roadside of the years 

Are strewn the wrecks of many a star-crowned fame 
That once enravished unremembered ears? 

XLVII 
And e'en the Parthenon — that matchless thing 
Which still in beauty's sky on broken wing 

Soars as the chosen one death would not slay — 
Why should the thought of her our bosom sting? 

XLVIII 
It is enough to feel that thou and I 
Are on this earth, to work, and serve, and die. 
As have the millions who have gone before. 
And as will other millions by and by. 



I i6 



XLIX 

And when thy voice is mute, thy strivings o'er, 
By no deft magic can report add more; 

Nor can subtraction be should Fame refuse 
To jewel thee with baubles from her store. 

L 

Fame's nought, while every deed that man has done 
Vibrating from its source has onward run, 

To mingle with its kind and ever beat 
For good or ill beneath the quickening sun. 

LI 
And as for thee in time long past was stored 
The force which in thy grate full oft has roared. 

So for thy soul has grown from age to age 
The spirit's energy in heaping hoard. 

LII 
Things, forces, change and change, but never die; 
Infinitude is writ on earth and sky ; 

And if it be no atom lives in vain, 
How can thy spirit ever clod-like lie? 

[ 17 1 



LIII 
This lily-bloom, we would not wish to stir 
From where it gazes on the towering fir, 

Is rooted in the mountain's mighty past, 
And churches are because the temples were. 

LIV 
Let not Necessity's most cunning wit 
Lead thee into Materialism's pit; 

No wind-blown waif art thou, and in thy soul 
Conscience and all her court unsleeping sit. 

LV 

And shouldst thou Right's most petty creature slay, 
Not all the worlds nor powers could put away 

The sure, commensurate penalty from thee ; 
It may be soon or late, but thou must pay. 

LVI 
Thou art thine own redeemer, thou alone; 
Not even the greatest can for thee atone; 

Nor can one bloom unfold within thy soul 
Except from seed thy careful hand has sown. 



i8 



LVII 

Wert thou not forced to pay thy sin's full cost, 
On Chaos' waves the universe were tossed, 
The Good and Evil be no more opposed, 
And black oblivion settle o'er the lost. 

LVIII 

Man is not nourished on ambrosial food; 

'Tis his to work, and serve, and not to brood; 

And if the knife of suffering cut his heart, 
The wound, it must be, carries with it good. 

LIX 

Though all the blossoms of thy heart be gone. 
Though from thy bosom's bitter wells be drawn 

But tears that hold thy consecrated dead, 
With freshened courage thou must still go on. 

LX 

The Evil rages and we know not why; 
But overhead we may behold a sky 

'Neath which the hosts of an eternal Good, 
With pinions dropping balm, forever fly. 

[ 19 J 



LXI 

And shouldst thou falter not thy keel may sweep 
Serenity's unbounded, stormless deep, 

Where mid its myriad Islands of the Blest 
Thou mayst communion with the noblest keep. 

LXII 

Duty will seem no ruthless tyrant there, 
With Faith and Love, triumphant o'er despair, 

To guide all heartening breezes to thy sail. 
As Hope's enthralling music fills the air. . . . 

LXIII 
But lo ! the day is done ; entrancing night 
With tremulous hush begins her noiseless flight, 

While we in wonderment still ever new 
Seem dowered afresh by her transfiguring light. 

LXIV 

And as we silent down the mountain go. 
What spirit-streams around our footsteps flow! 

What soothing ecstasies of peace proclaim 
That God is with us 'tis enough to know! 

[ 20 1 



NOT DEAD 

The poets all are dead, the critic cries, 

Save those that do but feed upon the great. 

Who through the years have kept empurpled state 

Beneath the radiance of adoring eyes; 

That now the Muse her benison denies; 

That thought no more with winged word can mate, 
And breathing music's deep delight create 
The songs that Art eternally will prize. 

Not so : the poet now, as ever, sings, 

And still shall sing, for all who care to hear. 
Ecstatic strains his very blood has wrought. 

Each Present hath its jewel-hearted things 
Whereby it lives ; but oft the Gods are near. 
When our beclouded sight beholds them not. 



[ 21 ] 



IMPROMPTU 

IN RESPONSE TO THE QUESTION: 

WHAT IS POETRY? 

( AKIKU AII'Uh.D HI'. M USSKT) 

To (iiivc the cli.'ise in cvciy hallowed spot 

By Memory haunted, and the captured thought. 

All tremulous, uncertain, lirni to hold 

Balanced on axis glorious of gold ; 

To stamp eternity upon the dream 

Which hut an instant lights him with its gleam; 

Deeply to love the beautiful and true. 

And their harmonious virtues to pursue; 

In his own heart to look and list unto 

The echo of his genius; all alone 

To sing, to laugh, and make his tearful moan, 

Thereto unprompted by design or guile ; 

Out of a sigh, a word, a look, and even a smile, 

A work of art consunuiiately to rear 

Full of sweet charmingness and moving fear; 

A radiant pearl to fashion from a tear: 

Such is the passion of (he jjoet's strife. 

His boon, his great ambition, antl his life. 



MEDITATION 

Be up and doing ! — In this time of steam 
Let not one moment pass unlaboring by; 
On these electric, wide-spread pinions fly 
To where alone the stars of action beam. 

Dear poet, leave thy phantom land of dream. 
Where lazy clouds all idly pace the sky, '^ 
While Fancy's fairies in the coverts lie, 
To watch with thee some naiad-haunted stream. 

Thou many-tongued, immitigable Voice, 
With mine own soul I would in quiet be. 
Till Silence medicine my wounded ear; 

Then with the heart of things shall I rejoice, 
The true realities divinely see. 
And deathless harmonies enraptured hear. 



* "Wlun he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds, 
And sails upon the bosom of the air." 

Roiiu'o and Juliet, .let II, Scene II. 



[ 23 ] 



THE GENERATIONS 

Deep-hearted Ocean, thou dost mock the years 
As one that glories in immortal youth, 
Untorn by time's inexorable tooth, 
Unmoved by war's or ruin's blood and tears. 

The snow-clad peaks, the towering domes man rears, 
Feel at their core decay's relentless ruth. 
While thou, — great symbol of faith-crowned truth, — 
Securely bidest, free of doubts and fears. 

And so, the Sea of Life rolls endless on. 
From out the fecund womb of eldest yore, 
Sparkling with joys, or gloomed with pains and woes. 

The generations one by one have gone, 

While still that Sea, which all their bubbles bore, 
Unhasting, yet unpausing, ebbs and flows. 



24 



GHOSTS 

The ghosts that come from out the years, 
Dream-winged and purged of passion's fears, 
Troop round me now as oft before, 
To fondly lead my footsteps o'er 
The paths my heart of heart endears. 

What hope-wreathed joy on joy appears. 
What bloomy cheeks no anguish sears. 
What vasty skies wherein to soar, 
O time of old ! 

Their voices die upon mine ears, 
I cry to them, but no one hears. 
While other ghosts around me pour — 
The ghosts of Now that madly roar, 
And mock my unrelieving tears, 
O time of old ! 



[ 25 ] 



NIGHT AND DAY 

The waves of Night dashed over me 
With such tempestuous roar and roll, 
It dazed all sense that such a sea 
Could threat to whelm the struggling soul. 

But when the Day, led in by dawn, 
With hope and promise radiant shone, 
I found the murderous billows gone. 
And all the air with rainbows sown. 



HOPE 

You tantalizing demon. Fear, 

Back to your native night. 

Nor bar sweet Hope that hovers near 

On wide-spread wings of light. 



[ 26 ] 



THE SOUL 

Who is it dares disturb my rest 

In this luxuriant poppy field, 

Where languorous airs within my breast 

All rare delights of music yield? 

I am thy Soul ! — Up from thy bed, 
And sweep the film from out thine eye, 
So that by consecration led, 
I may be saved that's like to die. 



FOUR IN ONE 

Science, and Art, and Ethics — these great three 
Support the mystic structure of the soul, 
While sweet Religion everlastingly, 
Deep as creation, underlies the whole. 



[ 27 ] 



DEATH 

The chattering guests, in sumptuous, proud array, 
Filled to the throat the heavy, glittering rooms; 
Ennui once more hard labored to be gay, 
While flowers hid deep all soul-tormenting glooms. 

But when stern midnight tolled, and every air 
Reeked like some noisome, pestilential breath, 
They sudden saw, with horror's mad despair, 
Gone was their guest, and in his place sat Death. 



NOT FOR DEATH 

Death, take my body; it has served me well, 
And I begrudge thee not thy wished-for dole; 
But to thy very face this dare I tell: 
Thou shalt not have the treasure of my soul. 



[ 28 



VACANCY 

Unchanging vacancy now fills alone 

This chambered house: no sorrowing voice, or gay, 
Nor woman's ministries, make full the day 
That love once clasped in her bejewelled zone ; 

Life, with its myriad miracles, has flown, 

While all the garden, where the breeze dared play 
With many a sun-kissed rose, lies nude and gray, 
Save where with tangled brier overgrown. . . . 

O Soul, art thou the house thus emptied quite 
Of all the glories which erstwhile did thrill 
Each nook and cranny of thy golden rooms? 

Is now thy garden fallen into blight. 

And do the strenuous winds no longer will 
To scatter skyward thy despairing glooms? 



[ 29 1 



QUESTION 

I sit and muse in these autumnal days, 

Companioned by the wistful, falling leaves. 
As now the far-gone year in passing grieves. 
And on our hearts his thin hand sadly lays. 

But through the sombrous web November weaves 
We see the Spring her verdurous banners raise 
Mid bursting bloom and songsters' joysome praise, 
While every clod with expectation heaves. 

The leaves are fluttering from my life's old tree, 
Fast withering now, yet once all freshly fair, 
And soon dread Winter will have stripped it bare; 

And then, without deserving, will it see 

Another Spring, and wondering breathe an air 
That tells of glories that are yet to be? 



[ 30 



O MOMENT STAY! 

O moment, stay, so beautiful thou art! 

Exclaimed the Faust immortal Goethe drew, 

As consummation lit his raptured view, 

And peace, long-tossed, slept sweetly in his heart. 

Alas! it came but only to depart; 

For death seized Faust, the while Mephisto's crew 
Sprang at his soul, once false, but now so true. 
It warded off hell's most envenomed dart. 

The moments stay not, nor have ever stayed: 

They pass, and we pass with them, closely bound 
By mystery's chain in endless, rhythmic round; 

But nought is lost, nor penalty unpaid. 

While work and service shall be nobly crowned 
Though he that wrought them in the dust be laid. 



31 ] 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS 

(a remembrance) 

As slow we strolled along the rocky shore, 
The ocean's surges ever restless beat, 
And broke in flowers of foam around our feet 
Mid wind's and breaker's diapasoned roar. 

The hovering fog its misty wings spread o'er 
The land and sea, till from its rock-bound seat 
The horn's hoarse signal labored to entreat 
The venturing ships now anxious to the core. . . . 

Then lo! the sun victorious cleaved the dark, 
And fell full radiant on the signal tower. 
Until it gleamed as with transfiguring glow. 

Thou timorous, doubting soul, why shouldst thou mark 
With fear the blackest cloud, or dare to cower 
Though hard beset by all the hosts of woe. 



[ 32 I 



THE NEW YEAR 
1906 

Time opens once again his mystic doors, 
And we, as ever, at the portal stand, 
By every breeze of expectation fanned, 
While Hope, lark-like, sings joyous as it soars. 

Yet havoc's demon madly ramps and roars, 

Mid blood and ruin, through the Russian land, 
Till heartened Liberty, for centuries banned. 
In every ear her tale of pity pours. 

And War seems puddling in his crimson mire. 
To find occasion for his base desire. 
Where jealous nations may new horrors rear; 

But Hope, undaunted, wings still high and higher. 
Until beyond the clouds its note rings clear. 
With Faith's, above the whine of Doubt and Fear. 



[ 33 ] 



MEMORY'S BELLS 

The Past's memorial troop insistent ring 

Within my heart their deeply-sounding bells, 
Whose mournful tone in every throbbing tells 
Of joys that evermore have taken wing. 

Yet 'tis not sadness which alone they bring; 
For as I list, once more my bosom swells 
With boyhood's bounding sport in woods and dells, 
Where rapture's voices unrestrained sing. 

Ah, where are they who filled the long-drawn hours 
Of every season's wonderments with me 
As though life had but happiness for sign? .... 

The bells have ceased; the sky of evening lowers; 
The fruitful Summer can no longer be, 
And barren Winter now alone is mine. 



[ 34 ] 



DREAM MUSIC 

O spirit mine, arouse thee from a sleep 

Which only sloth or weakness can prolong, 
And on the dazzling mountain-peaks of song 
Let Beauty's legions in thy heart's blood leap; 

Then list thou to the harmonies that sweep 
The infinite paths of infinite life along. 
Content to shrine but one of that vast throng 
In music all the years will love to keep. . . . 

This luring ecstasy, how vain ! how vain ! 

But though my reason's every tongue upbraid, 
I yet am bound a prisoner to its will; 

For yesternight mine ear caught such a strain, 
By dream's own fingers on my spirit played, 
That its melodious raptures shake me still. 



[ 35 ] 



A DAY WITH MUSIC 

The morning wooed us to the ocean-shore. 

Where stretched at ease in tranquil joy we lay, 
Watching the breakers' near, incessant play, 
And stirred by nuisiu of their thunderous roar; 

Then deep Beethoven's grand, symphonic lore 
Enchained the sequent hours of the day. 
While evening saw great Verdi's lighter sway 
Rule our obedient hearts as ne'er before. 

O miracle, in such brief span to be 

Far borne on Music's multitudinous waves. 
That roll triumphant over death's vast graves ! - 

Life-breathing waves, inimitably free. 

Divine, eternal ; while upon their breast 
The universe itself is rocked to rest. 



I 36 I 



THE DIVINE ORDER 

Dost thou let vastness overwhelm thy thought 
When led along imagination's way, 
Nor dare to dream that some ])ropitious day 
Will bring llicc gems willi newer radiance iraughl? 

Yon star's no farther with its beckoning ray, 
Whose distance science never yet has wrought. 
Than that alluring rose thy heart besought. 
Within thy lady's loving hand to lay. 

The faintest music of intoning spheres 

May beat harmonious on thy raptured ears. 
While glories infinite thine eyes may see. 

Soar where thou wilt on world-compelling wings, 
Still canst thou list tlie voice divine of things 
Proclaim thou art in them and they in thee. 



I 37 I 



THE DIVINE HARMONY 

A single soul — what microscopic mite 

When measured 'gainst the universe of things — 
A voice that for a moment sobs and sings, 
And then seems lost in silence of the night. 

But yet how great the meanest, merest sprite 
When measured in the universe of things; 
For there 'tis one with earth's supremcst kings, 
And bathes in unextinguishable light. 

It must be that the note of every soul 
Is needed in the harmonies that roll 
And throb eternally with power divine; 

And we have drank, when stars were fair to see, 
The summit's deep, revealing ecstasy, 
As shone refulgent the assuring sign. 



38 



TO A MARBLE STATUETTE OF BEATRICE 

« 
When youthful Dante's roving, marvellous eyes 

Upon the universe began to ope 

As if with presage of their future scope, 

They saw thy great original arise; 

And then he thrilled as one divinely wise. 
For well he knew the star of faith and hope, 
That should lead on his travailing soul to cope 
With all the hells beneath slorm-clouded skies. 

And now in marble spotless as her name 
Thou dost compel such tribute to her fame 
As if her own deep gaze upon us beamed ; 

For thine the art wherein we newly see 

Some hint of that which Dante greatly dreamed 
Of woman's loveliness and purity. 



39 



BEAUTY 

(Ani:u I'KKNANIl CKKCIl) 

This eve dream brims my heart, my tears unbidden rise, 

Eachwhere I feel another infinite soul to be. 

My silence fills the air with tremulous harmony, 

And flowers irradiant bloom at will of my closed eyes. 

My youth-compelling blood stirs with its ardent cries 
The old, far world whose kindred spirit speaks to me. 
And in the kindly dark immingling forms I see 
In motion's endless play and color's myriad dyes. 

O moment thou of Beauty ! Could I nothing know 
Save this thy swift-winged rapture in my clouded way, 
'Twere well to have been born, to death content I'd go. 

This eve my pride fed full on what man dreams for 

aye; 
And, like a bird one catches at the casement, so 
The infinite in my hand all palpitating lay. 



I 40 I 



LIFE'S BLEND 

Fret not, O vainly striving soul, 
For that thou mayst not reach thy goal. 
Or that the mists of evil bar 
From thee the light of many a star; 
For as we watch life's myriad streams, 
And sound the deepness of our dreams, 
This truth of truths we learn to feel, 
Beyond all reasoning to conceal. 
That the divinely ordering Will 
Gives neither Good alone, nor 111, 
The sceptre of unmixed control. 
But that in blended wave they roll 
Throughout creation's star-set whole. 



[ 41 ] 



THE POEM 

All Beauty's magic-weaving airs 
Blow through the Poet's answering soul, 
Till thrilled with ecstasy he dares 
The building of some flawless whole. 



LIFE'S JEWELS 

Seek not life's jewels where the poppies grow, 
Nor where Desire, all passion-poisoned, rears 
Her luring domes, but in the heart of woe. 
With shores far washed by sanctifying tears. 



RICHES 

All that life's ocean infinitely bears 
Of joys beyond all measure may be thine, 
For everything is his who nobly dares. 
And he that truly serves is then divine. 



42 



AMBITION 

" Long have I sued, and still have sued in vain ; — 
My one and only love, why dost thou wreak 
Thy scorn upon me? Wilt thou never speak 
The word to ease my heart's compelling pain?" 

" If thou'lt be brave," said she, " thy sorrow's rain 
Shall breed a harvest ; look ! seest thou yon peak 
That lifts at dizzy height its snowy beak? 
Bear me to that, and thou my heart mayst drain." 

Upon his back he took the tempting maid. 
And upward went; up and still up he strode. 
The distant, glittering peak his constant guide; 

Still up, o'er Alp on Alp, he strained, nor stayed 
Till to the pinnacle he bore his load — 
Then like an idiot laughed . . . and gasping . , . 
died. 



43 



MURMURINGS IN THE DARKNESS 

(after fern and gregh) 

This eve a wind divine is stirring in the trees ; 

Its long-drawn sighing fills the lonely, sombrous Park; 

Nought but the wind one hears, nought but the gloom 

one sees. 
While shadow-murmurings seem at times to bid us hark. 

'Tis like a rambling stream in eddy vaguely tossed 
'Neath the wan sky where gleams a lone star's emerald 

light; 
It draws anear, then fades, till in the distance lost. 
And at the window feigns to pass before our sight. 

It bathes each thing like water fragrant, crisp and sweet. 
Like airy, magic waves that lightly flow at will, 
So that in all the world no leaf or moss could meet 
Its tender touch and not voluptuously thrill. 

'Tis languor's all and ardor's, all that joy can own. 
With all that dreams, glides, faints, or noiseful passes by; 
'Tis like the silk's delicious, softly-rustling tone. 
Or like the nighttime's tremor dumb with ecstasy. 

[ 44 1 



In truth, amid the dismal depths profound we mark 
Its warm, mysterious wine elate the heart and brain. 
Something of heaven itself, at times we dare to feign, 
Something that's vast, august ; — yet vain and ever vain. 

It is as though a sigh of God filled all the dark. 



THE MYSTIC 

In symboled beauty all appears 
To him in nature as in art. 
The while in ecstasy he hears 
Bright angels singing in his heart . . 
Oh, would we had some sight of his 
To see life's glory as it is! 



LOVE NOT DEAD 

Thou fearest thou dost not love me as of yore; 
That time has plundered all affection's store; 
But should death take me from the sight of men. 
Canst thou believe thou wouldst not miss me then? 



45 



OPTIMISM 

The golden lances of the sun have slain 
The cruel fog that veiled the river's breast, 
And every crystal wave, now unoppressed, 
Leaps in the light with re-exulting strain. 

The birds, that long beyond their hour had lain 
Hidden and still, troop forth with gladsome zest, 
And in trumphant song their joy attest, 
To see the conquering sun resume his reign. 

Ye varied aspects of the woodland scene, 
How ye enravish us ; how bid us hold 
True to the course throughout creation rolled : 

No desert spreads its waste undowered of green, 
While mid time's sombre, perdurable tombs 
God's sifted, quenchless light forever looms. 



[ 46 ] 



IN ALL THE DAYS 

The generations come and go 
In immemorial, ghostly show; 
They pass, and pass, and are no more 
Than are the leaves of eldest yore 
That wintry winds blew to and fro. 

What toils and moils were theirs to know, 
What withered blooms were theirs to grow, 
What dust made up their treasured store 
In all the days ! 

And yet the streams of life still flow, 
No evil stalks but meets its foe, 
The Muse still guards her golden lore. 
While deathless Love still hovers o'er 
The anguished bed of many a woe. 
In all the days ! 



[ 47 ] 



THE STRANGENESS OF IT 

In tattered garb, unshaven and unshorn, 
Aimless along the city's crowded street 
He shuffles, knowing none that he may greet 
Save some poor creature like himself forlorn. 

Yet three-score years ago when he was born, 
What peaceful raptures more than honey-sweet 
In every heart-throb of his mother beat ! 
How proud his father on that hopeful morn ! 

And as he begs of me a paltry dime. 

With tremulous voice and most appealing face, 
To buy necessity for nightly rest, 

'Tis strange to think there could have been a time. 
When sheltered in a mother's fond embrace 
He slept an infant on her heaving breast. 



48 



REMEMBRANCE 

They tell me, gentle lady, thou art dead. 

And that the sons thine eye saw nobly grow 
Bewail and weep that they no more can know 
The fruited feast thy spirit daily spread. 

And while they mourn I see thy youthful head 
With mine o'er Virgil's pages bended low. 
To try to catch his strain's mellifluous flow, 
As every moment all too swiftly sped. 

O springtime days when Hope sat high in state, 
Full oft death's dreadful wizardry compels 
Your bitter sweetnesses again to be. 

That far, old time, how dear! How consecrate 
The fairy stories which it fondly tells ! 
How filled to-night with fragrant thoughts of thee! 



49 



RESOLUTION 

O heart, thou wilt not fail, 
O heart, thou canst not fail: 
Let every ruthless foe 
Deliver blow on blow, 
Let every venomed hate 
Its keenest hunger sate. 
Till all the ambient air 
Seems breathing but despair, 
Yet thou shalt march straight on. 
Nor yield, nor bend, nor fawn, 
Till Victory's Land of Light 
Looms large before thy sight. 



NOT ENVY 

Base Envy's poison cannot foul my soul 

When some strong spirit grasps his yearned-for goal; 

But surges then anew the deep desire 

To be inflamed with his celestial fire. 



L 50 



LIFE AND DEATH 

An owl sat on a dead tree's limb, 
Where, as the sunset showered on him 
Its paling gold, we startled saw 
A mangled mouse beneath his claw. 

And then we fell to musing there, 
Till sudden we became aware, 
From Hesper looming into sight, 
That Day was in the grasp of Night. 



IMPRISONED 

My prison house is loneliness. 
Whose jailors are my fears; 

My food is but mine own distress, 
That's moistened with my tears. 

She said, and in her clouded eyes 

I read a tale of miseries. 



[ 51 ] 



THE TRUE COURSE 

How gently run the luring days along 
Upon the bosom of seductive ease, 
My boon companions nobly-striving trees, 
And stream soft-throated with unending song. 

The storm-voiced ragings of the mart's great throng 
Fall lightlier on my drowsed sense than these 
Plumed grasses' murmurs, nor does any breeze 
Waft to my soul the terrors of a wrong .... 

Up from this bed of sweet delights and be 
Again afloat upon the human sea, 
My brother's heart in beat against mine own; 

Endeavor's rock-bestudded course for me. 

Though driven, mid all the dangers ever known, 
To shores where hopeless ruin reigns alone. 



[ 52 ] 



THE HAPPINESS OF THIS WORLD 

(after plantin, sixteenth century) 

r 

A spacious house to have, proportioned as is due, 
A garden where the trellis breathes with fragrant vine, 
Few servitors, few children, fruits and flavorous wine, 
In quiet to possess a wife that loves but you; 

All quarrels, debts, amours and lawsuits to eschew. 
With kin to little share, for nothing more to pine. 
The favors of the Great contented to resign. 
Your every plan to form on model just and true; 

Exempt from vain ambitions, unconstrained to live. 
To worship's holy rites your deepest self to give. 
The passions to subdue until obedient they; 

To keep the judgment strong, the spirit calm and free. 
In every stress of labor still your prayers to say. 
This is with faith to wait serenely death's decree. 



[ 53 ] 



CHRISTMAS BELLS 

Ring out, O heartsome Christmas Bells, 

Ring clear, and deep, and long, 
Till every noblest feeling swells 

To crush the mean and wrong; 
Till love, with her angelic train. 

Encamps within the soul. 
And bids her most melodious strain 

Throughout its chambers roll; 
Till raging ires' 
Pernicious fires 
In all the lands die down and cease. 
While reigns supreme the King of Peace. 

Ring out, ye Christmas Bells! 

Ring out, O sacred Christmas Bells, 

Ring far, and loud, and long. 
Till once again within us swells 

That old, earth-given song. 
First heard beneath the wondrous ray 

Which led the Magians where 
An infant all divinely lay, 

And breathed immortal air; 

f 54 ] 



Till we shall heed 

His simple creed, 
And learn, as on we stumbling go. 
To love is better than to know. 

Ring out, ye Christmas Bells! 

Ring out, O memoried Christmas Bells, 

Ring sweet, and low, and long. 
Till every bosom gently swells 

With thoughts, in grieving throng, 
Of brightsome eyes that fondly shone 

On ours this hallowed day, 
Of lips that spake with tenderest tone, 
Now passed from earth away; 
But while we hear 
The bells ring clear, 
Those eyes again with fondness shine, 
Those lips bespeak a joy divine. 

Ring out, ye Christmas Bells ! 



[ 55 ] 



UNDER THE BAY 



ON LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF 
WORDSWORTH 

Immortal Wordsworth, as thy pictured face, 
With all its placid calm, its brow serene, 
Its mild, benignant majesty of mien. 
Moves me to-day as with unwonted grace, 

I fain would yield, if only for a space, 
My soul to thee completely, and so clean 
My thoughts of all impurities terrene. 
That they with thine might dare to interlace. 

Thou deep-voiced singer of soul-quickening song: 
Thou nature's child to being's very core; 
Simple in all thy ways, yet bold and strong; 

One that to loftiest mountain-top could soar 
With unlaborious wing, yet skim along. 
No less at ease, the valley's daisied floor. 



59 



TO TENNYSON 

As comes to all, so thou didst pass away 
To that unfathomable, dark beyond, 
Before whose mysteries thine enchanting wand 
Stirred soulful music to her deepest play; 

And meet it was that when Death came, to lay 
His finger on that brain of dream so fond. 
Thy soul should yearn for Shakespeare's golden bond 
To bind the moments of thy closing day/'' 

Thou deftest master of poetic art, 

Whose verse is tinct with noble dignity. 
And makes of England an immortal part! 

Familiar things are glorified by thee. 

While dullest blood leaps lightly through the heart 
At thy far-sounding song of chivalry. 



* " On the bed a figure of bir.illiiiiK ni;irI)Io, flooded and bathed in 
the light of llie full moon streaming throngli the oriel window; his 
hand clasping the Shakespeare which he had asked for but recently, 
and which he had ke])l by him to the end." — Ii.vtract from the Medical 
Jiiillcliii (if l>i: Piihlis — 'rciniysoii's altciuVuii:, f^liysicinn. 



60 



SWINBURNE 

What words are his of myriad, dazzling dyes, 
That on the heart entrancing beauty throw; 
What streams of melody he bids to flow, 
As passion's ecstasy each humor tries; 

But where the thought mid cloying sweetness lies. 
Or oft is lost in waste of wordy show, 
Or screams discordant at some hated foe. 
Till Art lamenting pitifully sighs .... 

And yet how great his Drama : Mary here 

Immortal moves through maze of love and crime 
Here Knox forever shakes his priestly spear ; 

Here Bothwell schemes, the Satan of his time ; 
And here antiquity we newly con 
In Atalanta's chase in Calydon. 



6 I 



TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 

Landor, thou art, in truth, the one unique; 
A Briton, yet a Roman and a Greek, 
And still no less Italian; in all time 
Breathing ambrosial airs of every clime; 
Who all the spoils of all the ages stored, 
And drew such honey from thy heaping hoard. 
That we who read thee pause and pause again 
In wonder at the marvels of thy pen. 



A lettered Titan, thou, so greatly great, 
Thou sittest throned in high imperial state, 
Like some immortal God that keeps his place 
In lonely grandeur of unconquered space. 
With none so venturesome as dare dispute 
His rule as being less than absolute. 
And who, impregnably contented, knows 
That on the centuries he shall repose. 



62 



HEREDIA DEAD 

IH TOUKK .^, HXI5 

Vainly you'll call importunate and long 
On him to add fresh jewels to his store. 
For muse-beloved he dwells forevermore 
With all the crowned ones of his deathless song. 

And in the midst of that imperial throng. 
Now newly splendored by his sonnet-lore, 
Fame gently seats him and delights to score 
Her beadroll with his name in letters strong; 

For though he felt not passion's noblest ire 

That bears the uttered thought on wings of fire. 
Nor made his numbers all the vastness sweep. 

Yet he was Art's, and drank of her desire. 
Until Imagination, true and deep. 
Burst into beauty on his flawless lyre. 



63 



TO JAMICS RUSSELL LOWELL 

Ali(,li;,r I.', lS(ji 

Jyowrll, thou ;ii ( nol dciid ; lliou laiisl not die 
Till Ltttcrs' cliildicii ;ill sli.dl rciisc to l)c; 
Till d.iwiis tlic (lay (hut who such clay may see?) 
When Art's innunicrous crystal spritij^s run dry; 

Wlu-ii r'.iiu y skims no moit- llu- meads that lie 
III fadeless j;ieeii, and, doomed hy death's decree. 
Imagination's mijdity majesty 
No loiif^ei ianf;es thou};ht's hesplendored sky. 

Thou art the peilectest ol all the lloweis 

That yet have hlossomed on New ICnj^land's soil — 
Hlendiii}; ^Meat chaiactei with stintless powers. 

And making evei y literature thy spoil; 
While all thy years thy jewel-crusled pen 
Sent thrilling message to the hearts of men. 



(»1 



PKOKKSSOR jOSIOIMI LIO CON'IIO AT 
YOSICMITIO. jUI.Y /\ (.. i()()i 

"II il will- IK i\\ l( 1 (lie, 

' IWI'II' now III 111- llHi'.l ll.l|l|IV." 

I '///,■//,.. . /, / //. \,,'iir I. 

His h(»;iiy lit-iul, hislioiis with .ill tli.il's bcsl 
Oi hiiin.'iiikind, l>y Liiiu- iininoil.il iD.idr, 
In (ic.ilh's l;isl a};()ny lie iitly l.iid 
Upon Yoscinitc's (ilaiiic bic.isl. 

i'Or yen s llu-ii iiiiilii.ii love li.id Ucc-ii ( omIcssimI, 
And wluMi oiuc iiioic lui {dories lie siii veyed. 
His lapUired lie.iit such ecstasy betrayed, 
l'\ite dared not tempt him iiirther to be blest. 

llei beauteous leaves ol cedar, oak and pine. 
She lavish {;ave lor garlands to entwine 
His collin lashioned iioin her teemin}; stoic; 

And 'nealh the reveieiit ^-.i/.c oi hei }M<al walls, 

While throbbed in mnHled tones her saddened lalls, 
His clay, stai' lighted, hit her eveinioie. 



^5 I 



IIIONRY GICORGE 

He, liUo some pioplicl in llic days ol old, 
Took fvny laiiiliii^ heart into his own. 
And sotijdit assiiaj^finrnl ol Ihi- (U'eadflll moan 
l'\)rcviM risiii)', and hy noufdit ron(rollc»l. 

Against Ihr j;ian( wronj^s, wliosc rods cidold 
'I'lic hindcn wearied sonis that hopeless ^roaii, 
I lis ll.nninj; messa}^;e Hew as il 'twere hlown 
By all the woes that eaith has ever told. 

His love was man's nntil his latest day. 

When, battling '};ainsl et)rruption's loul array. 
Me lell, to Mood with k'^^.V *''' ^''•^* scene. 

Alas! Alas! llie world has lost him now, 
Ihil men will looU to it that on his brow 
The lam el keeps impel ishahly >m een. 



I 00 I 



POPE 

The choicest vintage ot atiibiosial wine 

He knew not, nor the harmonies divine. 

But who has matched, or who shall hope to match, 

The wit and sparkle of his rapier line? 



CHRISTOPHER SMART 

Smart was the marvel of his sapless time : 

To scribble reams of empty, futile rhyme. 

Then in a phrensy of poetic art — 

Crazed in his brain and saddened in his heart - 

To pour his soul into one mighty song. 

Where sparkling gems aboundingly so throng. 

And blaze with such imaginative light. 

That every year shall gladden in their sight — 

A deathless song with nature's ruin bought ; 

No wonder his own century knew him not! 



67 I 



OSCAR WILDE 

Say that his bosom nursed black pools of mire, 
Where venomed snakes their lustful poison bred, 
On which in bestial mood he weakly fed 
Until Law smote him with relentless ire ; 

Yet in his soul still flamed celestial fire ; 
And Beauty's lovely legions wide outspread 
Her conquering banner there, as raptured sped 
The songs that shook his music-breathing lyre. 

His dungeon's foulness leaves no speck or stain 
Upon the white refulgence of his strain. 
Nor bars its way along the loving years ; 

Nor takes the least from his all priceless gain, 
That at the last he calmed his spirit's fears. 
And died embathed in his repentant tears. 



68 



THE MUSIC OF WORDS 

(Tknnvson ,V()/(/ //( our of liis Itilks llmt "/'(•d/'/,' do not 
itinf(Tst(iiul Ihr iiiiisir t>f ■:cords.") 

To give to Beauty her surpassing meed 
As gemmed she lies immaculately fair; 
To paint the hopes that end in fell despair, 
While tones mellifluous every passion feed; 

To follow Fancy's fairy kin that lead 

Through vales of Dream embathed in drowseful air 

Or on Imagination's heights to dare. 

What dulcet, rolling, golden words we need — 

Such words as thine, thou mighty, crowned one, 
Who, like some inextinguishable sun, 
Shall light the heavens of man forevermore; 

Such words as Homer sent, long, long ago. 

With music winged, through Greece's heart of woe. 
Or such as Shakespeare made divinely soar. 



69 



UNDER THE CYPRESS 



INVOCATION TO THE MUSE 

Lend me the sounds from music's honeyed store 
Of every soothing softness crystal clear, 
To wing the words beyond all others dear 
To Poesy's supernal, deathless lore; 

Lend me the sounds of ocean's tempest roar 
Presaging all that man can feel of fear. 
To wing the words so awfully austere 
That Hope herself to hear them would give o'er. 

Then might I dare to sing her beauty's bloom. 
And how within my heart's supreme desire 
The chiefest thing of loveliness she lay ; 

And dare to sing that huge, appalling gloom 
When death fell on her with immediate ire. 
To bear her from my helpless arms away. 



I 73 



FROM JOY TO WOE 

A music fell upon mine ear 
As though from some celestial sphere, 
Then sudden ceased, and discord's clang 
Throughout my heart remorseless rang. 
Alas, what awful woe 
In human heart may grow! — 
What dreadful thought to stab a man. 
That Heaven from Hell is but a span! 



THE KISS OF PEACE 

An angel met me in the wood, 
Where i unreconciled had fled 
To scape the face of my dear dead. 
She led me where her sister stood 
With radiant face and lifted head ; 
Whereat they kissed me on the cheek. 
But not a word did either speak. 
They vanished, but I knew that they 
Had brought me llowcr of peace that day. 



I 74 I 



DREAMS 

I know not why so wciirisomc lo inc 
My necessary tasks .-ii)i)car to-day. 
Save that my brood of dreams is fain (o play 
Where all thinj:;s beautiful are wont to he. 

This very moment do I feel so free, 

That nought can hold me under tasking sway, 
As borne beyond the city's strenuous way 
I float in soundless, deej) serenity. 

And now the mountains woo me ever on, 

And many a lake lays bare its crystal breast. 
While scene on scene its pillared beauty reais. . . , 

O dreams that mock! for from mc siii<: has gone 

Who shared these joys with me ; and grief-oppressed 
1 sink to earth o'erweighted with my tears. 



I 75 I 



WITH SORROW 

Sweet Sorrow, with thy hooded, tear-brimmed eyes, 
Companion me this lonely, leaden day; 
Lead me from clamors and delights away, 
To silent list my heart's deep-muffled cries. 

Though death made my dear one his precious prize 
I've borne straight on, no duty to betray. 
Nor dared one golden-hearted hour to slay 
With fatal bane of solitary sighs. 

But when at times her doom upon mine ear 
Relentless beats, I faltering pause to hear, 
And feel an agony no power can stay. 

Some things of such eternal strength appear. 

That past all thought or dream seems their decay. 
Sweet Sorrow, take me, I am thine to-day. 



76 



THE FOG ROLLS IN 

The fog rolls in as it has rolled 
For years that never can be told, 
And all the sky of sombre-gray 
Makes drearier still the dreary day ; 

And hearts still ache 

Until they break, 
As it has been with Death alway. 

But though the fog be deeper rolled 
The sun's above it as of old; 
No sky can be so sombre-gray, 
But that the blue will have its way; 

And hearts will wake 

For love's dear sake, 
As it has been with Life alway. 



[ 77 ] 



MOURN NOT 

Mourn not thy dead, although they may have shone 
With fondest radiance on thy lessening years, 
Nor sink appalled before the fatal shears 
That bid thy treasured ones to leave thee lone. 

Mourn not the seed thy hands have left unsown, 
That might have joyed in golden-gloried ears; 
Nor mourn thine evil hours, thy craven fears. 
Nor fortune's favors which thou couldst not own. 

All these are gone, nor canst thou call them back, 
Though on their far-receding, darksome track 
The voice of every grief were joined with thine. 

Then seize, new-hearted, on the living Now, 

And march straightforward, with unshaken vow, 
Beneath's Hope's gladdening, promise-blazoned sign. 



78 



TO DEATH 

Thou monster Death, that dost no mercy show 
To least or greatest of the earthly train ; 
That hast made horrible thine endless reign 
With tear-cemented monuments of woe ; 

Thou angel Death, that kindly dost bestow 
Release from hopeless ill, from torturing pain, 
From life's engulfing flood where fiercely strain 
The desperate souls that faint and sink below; 

Like Love thou art as old as oldest eld, 
Yet ever new as is the wondrous child 
This moment blossomed on its mother's breast; 

And since the time that thou wast first beheld, 
When Order's music rang through Chaos wild. 
Life has by thee been nourished and caressed. 



79 



THE TOMB AND THE ROSE 

( Al'"l'l',l< Vl( Idlv' 11 I'CO ) 

The Tomb said to the Rose : " Love's own, 
What mak'st thou of the tears bestrown 
By lovely, dewy dawn o'er thee?" 
The Rose said to the Tomb: "And pray. 
What comes of that which feeds alway 
Thy gulf that yawns eternally?" 

Then said the Rose : " O sombre Tomb, 

I make of them a rare perfume 

Where honey with the amber lies." 

Then said the Tomb : " O plaintive Flower, 

Of every soul that feels my power 

I make an angel of the skies ! " 



80 



IN THE CEMETERY OF ... . 

(aKTICK victor IIUGO) 

The laughing living crowd by folly still is led, 

At times where pleasure rules, at times where anguish 

lies. 
But here these all forgotten, silent, lonely dead 
On me, a dreamer, fix their sad, regardful eyes. 

They know me to be man of solitary mood, 

A musing, strolling one that on the trees attends. 

The soul that sadly learns, from sorrow's countless 

brood. 
In trouble all begins, in peace all trouble ends! 

Ah, well they note the pensive, reverent mien of mine 
Mid crosses, graves and boxwood, while they mutely list 
To all the dying leaves that 'neath my foot repine ; 
And they have watched me dream in woods cool shades 
have kissed. 

O blatant living ones of strife and mad unrest. 

My flowing voice falls better on these dead ones' ears ! 



8 I 



My lyre's sweet hymns that lie deep hidden in my breast 
That are but songs for you, for them are gushing tears. 

Forgotten by the living, nature still is theirs: 
In death's all silent garden, where we end our dreams, 
In more celestial garb, and calmer, dawn appears. 
The bird is lovelier still, the lily purer seems. 

'Tis there I live ! — there pluck the rose of pallid face. 

Console with tombs that lie in desolation rent; 

I pass, repass, the branches tenderly displace. 

And stir the sighing grass ; — the dead they are content. 

'Tis there I dream; and roaming many a drowseful 

space. 
With thought-enwidened eyes I marvellously see 
My very soul transformed as in some magic place. 
That mystery-filled reflects the vast immensity. 

'Tis revery's fond ideal fills my vision there. 
Floating in shining veil between the earth and me; 
And there my ingrate doubts are melted into prayer: 
For standing I begin and end upon my knee. 



82 



The wandering beetles there I indolently watch, 

The wavering branches, forms, and color-glinting gleams, 

And on the fallen stones reposing love to catch 

The dazzlings of the flowers and of the myriad beams. 

As in the rock, whose hollow drips in sunless gloom. 
For drop of water seeks the thirsty, humble dove. 
So now my altered spirit seeks the shadeful tomb. 
To drink, if but a sip, of faith, of hope and love. 



RECONCILIATION 

Thou heart-bereaved, complaining mite, 
Why blink at God's eternal light, 
Why make an individual night 

Of cowardly despair? 
In the vast universe divine 
Sink every grief and woe of thine. 
And thou wilt nevermore repine. 

But sing in triumph there. 



[ 83 ] 



RAMBLINGS 



BOAT SONG 

Where the river murmurs music 
To the purple-wreathed hours, 
While the leaning, lovely willow 
On the wave its beauty showers; 
Where the stately, towering redwoods 
Mighty lords of nature seem. 
Float we gently in the twilight, 
Float we gently as in dream. 

Though the saucy rocks would bar us. 
Onward, onward still we glide, 
Till the placid pools receive us. 
Reaching far, and deep, and wide ; 
Resting then upon the bosom 
Of the music-murmuring stream. 
Float we gently in the twilight. 
Float we gently as in dream. 



[ 87 ] 



MY SECRET 

(MtKK l-Kl.t\ AKVKRS) 

My soul its secret has, my life its mystery: 

'Tis an eternal love an instant saw conceived. 

My pain's beyond all hope, so silent I must be. 

While she, the cause, knows not that I am sore bereaved. 

Alas! I shall have passed anear her unperceived, 
Still by her side and yet a lonely one to see, 
And shall have served on earth to life's extreme degree. 
Not daring aught to ask, and having nought received. 

Though God has made her sweet and infinitely dear, 
With heedless mind she'll go her way, and never hear 
The whispering tones of love that all her steps attend. 

Beneath the pious yoke of duty's rigid sway, 

When she reads o'er this verse all full of her, she'll say, 

"This woman, who is she?" and will not comprehend. 



88 



THE LADY'S ANSWER 

(after LOUIS ai(;oin) 

My friend, wherefore aver, with so much mystery, 
That the eternal love within your breast conceived 
Is pain beyond all hope, a secret that must be ; 
And why suppose that she may know not you're 
bereaved? 

Ah no, you did not pass anear her unperceived. 
Nor should you deem yourself a lonely one to see ; 
The best beloved may serve to life's extreme degree, 
Not daring aught to ask, and having nought received. 

The good God gives to us a knowing heart and dear. 

And on our way we find that it is sweet to hear 

The whispering tones of love that all our steps attend. 

She who would meekly bow to duty's rigid sway, 
Reading your verse of her, felt more than she can say : 
For though she spake no word, . . . she well did 
comprehend. 



[ 89 ] 



MY LADY SLEEPS 

My lady sleeps, and sleeps in childlike peace ; 
No tear-drop stains her lovely, restful face. 
While placid smiles do there each other chase, 
To give assurance of her pain's release. 

Her head low sinking in the pillow's crease 
In deep repose I fain would now embrace. 
Till in my heart, as in some holy place, 
Joy swelled to thankfulness without surcease. 

O Sleep, thou top of blessings ! What to thee 
Does grief-struck, ache-tormented man not owe. 
Or how, without thee, from his miseries flee? 

And now that thou my lady's couch dost know. 
From torture's agony to set her free. 
Thou beam'st upon me with divinest glow. 



go 



SONG 

Dear love, around me fold thine arms, 
And lay thy cheek against mine own, 
Where nested safe from all alarms. 
My heart shall be thy firm-set throne. 

Reign there beloved, reign alone, 
With sceptre fashioned of thy charms, 
Till winged by death we shall have flown 
Beyond the reach of passion's harms. 



THE ROSE 

Thou lovely Rose, I cannot now but sigh, 
To see thy petals thus dismembered lie . . 
Lament not me: SHE wore me in her hair 
Ah, then I lived unnumbered hours there. 



9 I 



IN THE CONVENT GARDEN 

(last scene of (.VRANO I)E bergerac) 

Steeped in autumnal dyes the mournful leaves 
With sad insistence flutter to the ground, 
And blend their voices with the vespers' sound, 
To soothe the heart that still for Christian grieves. 

Beneath the sighing trees her bosom heaves; 

For memories throng, while he that in her bound 
Brings worldly word comes not — he whom, 

thorn-crowned, 
She still, as ever, blindly misconceives. 

At last all worn he comes with feeble breath, 
In whose sweet tenderness preluding death 
Throbs strangely new a note from love's past years: 

It tells that he, not Christian, won her kiss. 
That his, not Christian's, pen had fed her bliss. 
And that Remorse shall fill her cup with tears. 



92 



A WAIF 

A lustrum and of years two score 
Have passed since she the sheet ran o'er 
Which, newly found, before me lies, 
While I, with retrospective eyes, 
Tear-dimmed, upon it muse and pore. 

How strange that to my distant shore 
So slight a waif from land of yore 
Should float surcharged with heavy sighs 
Of long-gone years. 

Her cheeks that love's rich roses wore. 
When she penned this, now bloom no more : 
And yet, O Death, that scorned my cries, 
I thank thee for this welcome prize 
Safe housed with memory's myriad store 
Of long-gone years. 



[ 93 ] 



AN OPERA CLOAK 

Poor, cast-off opera cloak that shows 
Your pride from hidden, long repose, 
I smile to note the scornful eye 
Wherewith my dear now puts you by, 
Though richly wrought with broidered rose. 

But ah, with what delight, who knows. 
She donned you first to list to those 
Rare strains that swelled in triumph high. 
When Patti sang. 

Mad fashion's blight upon you blows, 
The diva's days now tuneless close. 
Yet she that dooms your death and I 
Have bred a love that dares not die. 
Though we have borne heart-rending woes 
Since Patti sang. 



9 4 



IN MEMORY 

b'lill oft it was as balmy nij;lU 
Wove many a web of dreamy light. 
The moon so touched her biiddinp^ charms. 
I feared for my enloUling arms, 
That held her close. 

And so, on one forbidding night, 
That knew no moon's caressing light. 
All withered lay her blossomed charms 
In envious death's relentless arms. 
Thai held her close. 

But oft aj;ain in memory's nij^lit 
The moon relloods the scene with light, 
And lovelier still, her wakened charms 
Rejoice my fond, enfolding arms. 
That hold her close. 



I 9 5 



COME NEAR ME WHEN I SLEEP 

(^ AFTER VICTOR lUl.o) 

Oh, when I sleep, come closely to my couch 

As did fair Laura to Petrarca's side. 

And as I feel thy breathing's balmy touch ... — 

Sudden my lips 

Will part to thine. 

When on my brow, where then perchance some dream 
Of darkness settles which too long would bide. 
Thy lovely eyes look down with starry beam ... — 

Sudden my dream 

Will brightly shine. 

Then if my lips, whose fluttering flame has learned 

Love's lightning God himself has purified. 

Are kissed by thee — to woman angel turned ... — 

Sudden will wake 

This soul of mine. 



96 



CLEOPATRA 

( Al TKK AI.IIKKT SAMAIN ) 

Leaned on the tower's battlements, all silent she, 
The Queen, with radiant locks that fillets closely bind. 
Allured by perfume's spells full troublous to the mind. 
Feels mounting in her heart Love's vast, unresting sea. 

Beneath her violet eyes, moveless, to dream resigned. 
She sinks into her cushions' softly-sheltering nest. 
While necklaces of gold deep heaving on her breast 
Bespeak her languishment and fevers unconfined. 

Upon the monuments' fronts day's last rose-tints are 

spilled. 
The eve, in velvety shade, is with enchantments filled; 
While meantime as far distant cry the crocodiles, 

The Queen, with fingers clinched, sobbing her heart 

away, 
Thrills to the bone to feel the artful, prurient wiles 
Of hands that in the wind with all her tresses play. 



97 



THE CONDOR'S SLEEP 

(after leconte de lisle) 

Beyond the Cordilleras' stairs that steeply wind, 
Beyond the eagle's haunts in mist-enshrouded air, 
And higher than the cratered, furrowed summits where 
The boiling flood of lava rages unconfined, 
His pendent pinions tinct with spots of crimson dye, 
The great bird silent views, with indolent, dull stare, 
America and space outreaching boundless there, 
And that now sombre sun which dies in his cold eye. 
Night rolls from out the East, where savage pampas lie 
Beneath the tier on tier of peaks in endless line; 
It Chili lulls, the shores, the cities' roar and cry. 
The grand Pacific Sea, and horizon all divine ; 
The silent continent its close embraces hide: 
On sands and hills, in gorges, on declivities, 
And on the heights, now swell, in widening vortices. 
The heavy flood and flow of its high-rolling tide. 
Upon a lofty peak, alone, like spectre grim, 
Bathed in a light that dies in crimson on the snow. 
He waits this direful sea that threats him as a foe: 
It comes, it breaks in foam, then dashes over him. 
As in the unsounded depths the Southern Cross now 
looms 

[ 98 1 



Upon the sky's vast shore a pharos-glowing Hght, 
His rattling throat speaks joy, he proudly shakes his 

plumes, 
His muscular, peeled neck he lifts and stretches tight; 
To raise himself he gives the hard snow lashing stings; 
Then with a raucous cry he mounts where no winds are. 
And from the dark globe far, far from the living star. 
In the icy air he sleeps on grand, outspreading wings. 



MY SUMMER 

Once more stern winter comes apace 
With chilling wind and lowering sky. 
But summer still makes glad thy face, 
And in its warmth I restful lie. 



iLOFC, 



[ 99 ] 



THE EAGLE 

On a lone crag, where Storm's wild children nest 
Mid glacier's ice and "ast, unmelting snows, 
The lordly Eagle stands, while Morning throws 
Her spears of golden light against his breast. 

Deep stirs within him an unwonted zest, 
And as the verdurous vale's serene repose 
Alluring spreads, in scorn of waiting foes 
He downward sweeps in majesty confessed. 

But scarce his wings were folded from their flight, 
When man's disloyal rifle smote the air, 
And limp he fell in death's unending night ; — 

And when the hours had drearily dragged on, 
His mate, in desolation's dumb despair. 
Gazed at the vale rewakening to the dawn. 



I o o 



THE COCK 

Adown his neck, upcurving high, 
His plumes in golden radiance flowed, 
With gleaming bronze his body glowed, 
While all his tail of sable dye 
Waved banner-like as proud he strode. 

His comb in scarlet glory shone 

Above an eye of stern delight, 

And bits of rainbow tinted bright 

His breast, as with resounding tone 

His clarion shook the neighboring height. 

For all the filth that reeked around 
The purlieu's street he had no care; 
He glorified its earth and air. 
And with a flawless beauty crowned 
Strode on in lonely splendor there. 



[ loi ] 



THE ORCHARD 

(after edmoxd rostand) 

(The original of the following version was published in the 
November 28th, 1903, number of Harper's \\'eck]y. with the following 
introduction: "The following verses were written by M. Rdstand, 
the Academician and playwright, on the occasion of a performance 
given recently in Paris in aid of the Actors' Home. This home — 
the ' Maison des Comediens ' — is for actors who have grown old in 
their profession, and is situated at Couilly, near Paris. It will be 
opened during the coming year. The verses arc dedicated to 
M. CoQUELiN, who, as President of the French Society of Actors, was 
largely instrumental in making the Maison des Comediens possible.") 

What orchard's this wherein the Cid recites his strain 
With tremulous voice beneath the sun's warm, genial 

light? 
Where not so eager now of folly to complain. 
Since whitening fast he sees the locks of Celimene, 
With leaves of living green Alceste his coat makes 

bright? 
What orchard's this wherein the Cid recites his strain? 

Its distances in golden glory melt away ; 
Smooth-faced as some old Marquis, all the strollers 
there. 



102 



What Park is this wherein thy soul of froHc play 
— Thy great soul seeming but the trivial to essay ! . . . — 
Breathes deep the lovely landscape's fresh, delicious air . . . 
Beneath a sky whose golden glory melts away? 

Old dames who seem to owe to art their aged air 
Pluck blooms where insects flash their emerald-tinted 

dyes. 
No more the reeking den! No more gloom's dull despair! 
And on all sides the Garden looking to the skies ! 
While underneath the boughs in pensive meekness fare 
Old dames who seem to owe to art their aged air. 

A time-worn shawl is draped as with a princess' hand; 
Hernani buttons on a box-coat out of date; 
The names that light their past incessant they 

command. . . . 
A Frederick one has heard, and one, Rachel the great! 
And then the trees become an audience ranged in state, 
Where time-worn shawl is draped as with a princess' 

hand! 

Here sadness flits away like curtain upward rolled. 
Not in the least be lost the dreams that follow you, 

[ 103 J 



You that to us bore cups of dream in days of old ; 
And, charmers of our evenings, now that yours are told, 
Why should we not your footlights place beneath the 

blue? 
Here sadness flits away like curtain upward rolled. 

What wide-spread orchard's this all filled with revery's 

haze 
And with comedians gay, like park by Watteau made? 
Where wandering Mascarille, without his mask and 

blade. 
Dons now his theatre-cloak, as fancy's vision plays, 
When soft the pine-trees fleck his mantle with their 

shade? . . . 
What beauteous orchard's this all filled with revery's 

haze? 

What beauteous orchard's this a Moliere makes his own. 

All pensive as he feels the soil's deep love control 

The ivy's arms around his marble to be thrown, 

And smiling as he sees Elmire and Dona Sol 

Within the arbor chat in kind, familiar tone? 

What beauteous orchard's this a Moliere makes his own? 



1 I 04 I 



The moving vines festooned upon 

The arbor have no fictive guise. 

The pate's not from pasteboard drawn 

Which down the throat of Gringoire hies! 

Misfortune's child no longer sighs; 

Leander now is castellan; 

Stirs Buridan while Scapin lies. 

The orchard this of Coquelin. 

The villain now on sheep would fawn; 
The lover every calyx tries, 
His piping voice forever gone. . . . 
Yet on the side-scenes keeps his eyes! 
In lakelet, which with mirror vies. 
The Star delights to fondly scan 
The twilight heaven's reflected dyes. 
The orchard this of Coquelin. 

Don Cesar now has jacket on; 

While Harpagon his vice defies, 

And redemands his miroton ; ='= 

Sweet Agnes dreams, somewhat more wise 

* Miroton is a dish of minced beef and onions. 

I 105 I 



Of crawfish Perdican makes prize ; 
When tinkle, tinkle, rings Argan, 
To do his will each swiftly flies, . . , 
The orchard this of Coquelin. 

ENVOY 

Prince, princesses, we here devise 
Some eves of golden-tissued plan, 
And real the sun that walks our skies ! 
The orchard this of Coquelin. 



LOVE 

O Love, thou greatest solvent life can know ! 
In thy vast sea the bitterest pangs of woe. 
The hardest flint of trial or of pain, 
Dissolve and lose all mischief of their bane. 



[ I o 6 1 



FROM A WINNOWER OF GRAIN TO THE 
WINDS 

(after Jt)ACHIM DU BELLAY) 

Nimble troop, to you 

That on light pinion through 
The world forever pass, 
And with a murmuring sweet 
Where shade and verdure meet 
Toss gently leaf and grass, 

I give these violets, 

Lilies and flowerets, 
And roses here that blow. 
All these red-blushing roses 
Whose freshness now uncloses. 
And these rich pinks also. 

With your soft breath now deign 
To fan the spreading plain, 
And fan, too, this retreat, 
Whilst I with toil and strain 
Winnow my golden grain 
In the day's scorching heat. 

[ 107 ] 



THE HOMERIC COMBAT 

(AFriCU LliCONTli: UE l.lSLl':) 

The same as in the sun when swarms of monstrous 

flies 
The hides of slaughtered bulls innumerous cover o'er. 
Beyond their ships the men, with hair long-streaming, 

pour 
In whirlwind wrath and clamor raging to the skies. 

All mix in tumult dire: mouths hoarse with desperate 

cries, 
Loud din of blows, the live, and they that breathe no 

more, 
Stallions uprearing wild, void chariots sprent with gore, 
And levin-flashing shields in thunderous fall and rise. 

With burning gaze, and head with writhing reptiles 

crowned, 
The yelping Gorgon grinds her teeth as sweeps she 

round 
The awful plain where blood exhales unceasing reek. 



I I 08 



Zeus, furious, rises then upon his golden pave. 

And all the mighty Gods, heroically brave. 

Into the combat plunge from the cloud's topmost peak. 

SUNBRIGHT HERCULES 

(AKTKK LiaoNTl'; 1)K I.ISI.K) 

O pang-born Tamer who as swaddled infant killed 
The Night's fell Dragons! O thou Warrior. Lion-Heart, 
Who pierced bane-breathing Hydra with thy burning dart 
Where poisonous mist and mire their livid horrors 

spilled; 
And who with flawless sight of old saw Centaurs start 
At precipices' verge and wheel with rearing breast ! 
Of all the genial Gods, the eldest, fairest, best ! 
O purifier King, who through thy glorious days. 
Made, as so many torches, from the East to West, 
The sacrificial fire on every summit blaze ! 
Thy golden quiver's void, the Shade's at last thy goal. 
Hail Glory of the Air ! All vainly dost thou tear. 
With thy convulsive hands where flames in rivers roll, 
The bloody clouds which wreathe thy pyre divine, and 

there 
In purple whirlwind now thou yieldest up thy soul ! 



I o 9 



NATURE 

(after CHARLES BAUDELAIRE) 

Nature a temple is, from whose live pillars rise 
Voices that seem at times but from confusion drawn, 
And where through maze of symbols man plods on 

and on 
Beneath familiar look of their close-watching eyes. 

Like long-drawn echoing sounds in far-off distance 

heard, 
Immingling sombrous, deep, in oneness to unite, 
Vast as the endless dark, vast as the endless light, 
Sounds, hues and odors give each other answering word. 

It breathes a perfume fresh as skin of little child, 
'Tis sweet as hautboy's note, as green as prairie's breast, 
— With complex, changing forms in triumph's richness 
piled ; 

So infinite no bound its regions can invest; 

Like amber, benzoin, musk, like every fragrant thing 

That all the joys of sense and of the spirit sing. 



I I o 



THE AXE 

(after HENRI DE REGNIER) 

Listen, Upon the stones the icy wind full drear 
Makes slowly, surely sharp — workman no eye can see — 
Its norther's bills and scythes as keen as steel can be. 
Listen. 'Tis Time's dread step that on the road we 
hear. 

Listen. Afar e'en now the flowers are stripped and sere; 
The neighboring mead's a-cold; and this majestic tree 
At breath so murderous shakes and shudders fearsomely; 
While trickles drop by drop its Dryad's life-blood dear. 

The woodmen, binding bark and fagots, wend their way, 
Alas! thy towering stature and thy strength to slay; 
Thine own shade marks the hour for thee to be laid low; 

But when some autumn eve is proud to see thee die 
Amid thy golden limbs that all dismembered lie, 
Then calmly, grandly fall beneath the axe's blow. 



[ III ] 



IN UNION SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO 

In joysome strength as by supreme decree. 
In grace and beauty such as few can own. 
Superbly poises on her columned stone 
Our loved, renowned Lady of Victory. 

One hand holds high the trident of the sea. 

And one, the wreath for him by fame far blown, 
While round her shaft wide spreads a verdurous zone 
Where peace reclines in calm serenity. 

Yet here misfortune's children in defeat 
Despairing drone the jewelled hours away, 
And hopeless mourn the unreturning years. . . . 

How wretched those whose weary, trammelled feet 
Can never reach achievement's crowning day 
When every air throbs deep with victory's cheers ! 



112 



IN SPRINGTIME 

What azure fills the genial skies ; 
What fresh and balmy breezes rise 
With rapture on their magic wings; 
How teems the earth with fragrant things, 
How sweet the songsters' mating cries ! 

'Tis now we look with gloating eyes, 
And deem that every joy outvies 
The joys of all the gladsome springs 
Of other days. 

Yet spring once wore still lovelier guise. 
When she and I, in fondness wise, 
Knew every bliss that April brings — 
She, that dear one to whom death clings, 
And hears unmoved the sobbing sighs 
Of other days. 



[ 113 ] 



IN TIME OF NOVEMBER 

The leaves are falling, falling, 
By autumn's breath embrowned; 

The restless winds are calling 
With ever saddening sound; 

And all the long-dead embers 

Of all my past Novembers 
Seem heaped in burial mound. 

But Memory joys in bringing 
Her loveliest blossoms there. 

With birds whose heartsome singing 
Dispels each dark despair; 

And then those embers' fires 

Reflame with June's desires, 
Till Life grows newly fair. 



I 14 



AN ARIZONA CACTUS 

The burning sun has scorched the rainless ground, 
Where the volcano's progeny still lie; 
And yet beneath an unrelenting sky 
What creatures born to beauty may be found! 

Just now we caught a bird's melodious sound 
In unison blending with the pine's low sigh, 
The while a daisy's all unenvious eye 
Watched a near juniper with glory crowned. 

But chief of all, behold yon crimson flame 

The sun has kindled on the stone's gray breast 
Within the Cactus's exulting heart .... 

Beside thy light all others seem but tame ; — 
Thou desert-torch, thou beauty's topmost crest, 
No voice could sing how wonderful thou art. 



[ 115 



UNDER A PINE AT THE GRAND CANYON 

Beneath a friendly, towering pine we lay, — 
Its sun-smit needles dancing in their bright, 
Gem-glittering sheen, — and breathed the deep delight 
That streamed ecstatic through the veins of day. 

Below, the awesome canyon's vast array 
Swam silent in its sea of azure light, 
While far beyond, within our wondering sight. 
The desert stretched inimitably gray. 

Above us screamed a rapture-hearted jay; 

And while the breeze swept music to our ears, 
Whose murmurs deepened all the joys of rest, 

Dream's noiseless pinions wafted us away, 
Beyond the toils and tumults of the years, 
To purple-glowing Islands of the Blest. 



I i6 



TO THE GRAND CANYON 

Upon thy lofty rim we breathless stand, 
As thy stupendous, myriad structures glow 
With color's opulence, while far below 
The raging river seems a slender band. 

Thou feignest thou art eternal, yet thy grand, 
Unrivalled palaces will surely go 
In wreck adown the ages as they flow, 
While other beauties will their place command. 

Time is for man alone, and not for Him 
Who bade the light forevermore to be, 
And thee in all its amethyst to swim. 

The Lord that fashioned us has fashioned thee. 
And as we put our puny hands in thine, 
We thrill to feel that we are both divine. 



I I 7 



IN THE PETRIFIED FOREST, ARIZONA 

All round us here, in myriad number strown, 

The monstrous trunks, great chips and splinters lie, 
Of great-armed trees that once besought the sky. 
Changed to bright jewels of enduring stone. 

What eons on slow-pacing wings have flown 

Since first their verdure caught the sun's fond eye, 
And since transfiguring nature bade them die. 
To rise resplendent in this desert lone. 

What glorious death was theirs, if death it be : — 
To live in newer loveliness, and light 
The solitude with love-enkindling ray; 

The toad's and lizard's beauty they may see, 
With many a bloom's, behold the eagle's flight, 
And on all hearts the hand of wonder lay. 



[ ii8 ] 



A LIZARD OF THE PETRIFIED FOREST 

Upon an age-worn, upright stone 

Of gems that once had been a part 

Of some great tree's rejoicing heart 

A Lizard, motionless and lone, 

A glowing, living emerald shone 

Of such encrusted, radiant sheen. 

He reigned the monarch of the scene — 

A creature nature's hand had done 

When wrought the earth, and air, and sun, 

In most harmonious unison. 

He viewed us, as we passed him by. 

With calm and yet with questioning eye. 

But moveless still, as though the stone 

Were portion of his being's own, 

And voiceless as the forest is, 

Whose jewelled ruins all are his. 

The desert seemed to hold him there 

As one of her supremest fair. 

As one to whom our souls should owe 

The best that beauty's love can know, 

And with her prideful voice to say, 

" See how I gem my breast of gray ! " 

[ 119 ] 



THE SAWMILL 

The demon Sawmill cried, I lack for food 

Wherewith to cram this craving maw of mine, 

That spite of nature and of law divine 

Would gorge on all that's grandest in the wood. 

Then they who madly serve the monster's good, 
Mid jocund laughter, slew a towering pine, 
As bright-eyed, cheery morn with flaming sign 
Awoke to life the slumbering solitude. 

For immemorial years this fallen one 

Had been so loved by earth, and air, and sun. 
He seemed with beauty for the ages clad ; 

And as his massive trunk and members lie 
Dissevered and a wreck, we marvel why 
The demon and its slaves can still be glad. 



[120] 



IN JEFFERSON SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO 

Beneath the maple's wide-spread canopy 
In Spring's fresh garb miraculously dight, 
I restful sit and muse as morning's light 
Still newly trembles in the heart of me. 

Adown the long, embowered arcades I see 
The children schoolward wend, with hope all bright. 
And many a wretch from life's despairing fight. 
That here would soothe his aching misery. 

The waves of traffic, rolling loud near by. 
Cannot persuade me now so much as these 
Intrepid sparrows that around me play; 

And here with them, and with this radiant sky. 
As balmy breezes stir the whispering trees, 
I pause and dream all carking cares away. 



12 1 



MAN AND TREE 

We found ourselves within a woodland maze, 
Where royal redwoods once held splendrous reign; 
But years agone their noblest had been slain, 
Till devastation ruled the sighing days; 

And there we fixed our sadly wandering gaze 
On one huge trunk of beauty's grandest strain, 
Whose wonder-breathing life, destroyed in vain, 
Seemed mocking man and all his ruthless ways. 

And over and around it twined at will, 

As though the murdered dead again to kill. 
Vines that dealt poison from each venomed pore. 

Its human brother's fate is oft the same : 

When some brave soul is struck, to rise no more. 
What baneful tongues delight to stab his name. 



[ 122 ] 



TO THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO 

We breathless view thee as a thing that's living, 
Filled with thine own all silent-moving blood, 

No less than are thy furred and feathered creatures, 
Nor than thy roaring, wonder-working flood ; — 

And truth, when filled with light's empurpling wine, 

Who then can doubt thy life to be divine? 

Or when mysterious dawn creeps o'er the desert, 
To fold thee in her wide-embracing arms, 

And all thy palaces, and domes, and towers. 
Tremble with seeming new-created charms, 

While Navajo, by her in passing kissed, 

Serenely glows a flawless amethyst. 



[ I 23 



WITH MEMORY 

'Tis Memory steers me as my boat drifts by 
The banks with blossoms prodigally gay, 
While far and near with many a carolling lay 
The mating songsters fill the earth and sky. 

Here let me stop, and 'neath this elm-tree lie, 

Where boyhood's moments passed like dreams away, 
And once more watch the sun's expiring ray 
Light the cows homeward from the pasture nigh. 

Their tinkling bells die out along the lane ; 
The gloaming slowly deepens into night. 
And mid the darkness Memory flits from me. 

Would she had longer stayed; but her delight 
Has sweetly soothed the Present's piercing pain, 
And bade me hope for worthier days to be. 



[ I 24 J 



A REMEMBRANCE OF AUTUMN WOODS 

I do remember in the long ago 

How flamed the maple 'gainst the clouded sky, 
While oak and hickory as with human sigh 
Saw all the ground their dying leaves bestrow. 

Ah, then the pulse of things beat sad and low, 
And silently the shrivelled brook passed by 
Where wakening Winter seemed so very nigh. 
We faintly heard his boreal trumpet blow. 

But then what joy rapaciously to loot 

The pawpaw's and persimmon's luscious fruit. 
That ripening frost had lovingly passed o'er. 

As walnuts from their mother trees fell down. 
On many an eve the jocund feast to crown. 
With jennetings all mellow to the core. 



I 25 



MY BOHEMIA 

A FANTASY 
(after ARTHUR RIMBAUD) 

With fists in tattered pockets forth I strayed, — 

My great-coat, too, not far from raggery, — 

Beneath the skies, O Muse, all true to thee; 

And there what radiant love-dreams round me played ! 

My only breeches gaped with holes as I, 

Poor, little dreamer, many a rhyme dropped where 

My footsteps fared; mine inn the heaven's Great Bear, 

'Neath stars whose soft, sweet rustlings filled the sky. 

I heard them as I sat by roadsides when 
September's eves were steeped in balm; and then, 
As with strong wine, my face was wet with dew; 
And rhyming mid strange glooms a lyre I made 
Of my torn shoes' elastics, worn and frayed, 
As near my heart my wearied foot I drew. 



George Moore, in his "Impressions and Opinions," states that 
Rimbaud wrote the sonnet the version of which from the French is 
here given, when he was fifteen years of age, and that its first 
pubHcation was in the book with title as above. 



[ 126 ] 



TO BEAUTY 

What joy to watch thee as thy wings with zest 
Bear tremulous Dawn along the gladsome height, 
Or when with languid beat they shed their light 
Of paling crimson on the saddened West; 

To see thee flitting, as a seraph blest. 

Through dale and wood the meanest to bedight, 
O'er pools deep-bosomed brooding, and with Night 
Lying mid splendors of her vasty breast! 

The canvas throbs beneath thy deathless art, 
While at thy word the Sculptor newly wakes 
To sudden life the eon-slumbering stone ; 

And when thou leadest to the Poet's heart 
Thy flock of airy dreams, he raptured makes 
The song all ages cherish as their own. 



[ 127 ] 



TO THE OWL THAT ALIGHTED ABOVE THE 

PICTURE OF ATHENS HUNG IN ONE 

OF THE LECTURE HALLS OF 

RUTGERS COLLEGE 

IN MEMORY OF THE LATE PROFESSOR JACOB COOPER OF RUTGERS COLLEGE 

O thou, wise bird Athene made her own, 
Did instinct's pulses beat within thy breast 
When in this college hall thy wings found rest 
Above the picture of her matchless throne? 

Or wast thou here at friendly moment blown 
By breeze favonian, to remind us lest 
Our faith in old ideals, so long professed. 
Be like the Parthenon's columns — overthrown? 

It matters not ; we take thee as thou art, 

And house thee safe and warm in every heart, 
For ne'er before was spectacle like this ; 

And now we feel the centuries backward rolled, 
While in supernal splendor as of old 
Upsoars the temple-crowned Acropolis. 



[ 128 ] 



ULYSSES AND CIRCE 

In sunless vale the Circean palace stood 
A marble wonder, where, mid luring song 
And drowseful, fragrant sweets men lingered long. 
To drain their hearts and souls of every good. 

As wrought she at her web in singing mood. 
All unsuspicious came Ulysses' throng. 
Whom, like the rest, though bearded men and strong. 
She changed to beasts with bestial form endued. 

Then rose Troy's hero in tremendous ire. 

And scourged foul Circe with such whips of fire, 
She helpless crouched within her poisonous den; 

And forth from out the wallow of their sty 
His rescued fellows sprang with sparkling eye. 
Once more bold-hearted, undespairing men. 



129 ] 



ICARUS 

At last the waxen wings were all complete. 
Then spake wise Daedalus unto his son, 
Who, hot with pride that now escape seemed won, 
Longed for his pinions to supremely beat 

In loftiest waves of air: "My boy, most sweet 
Of everything the Gods for me have done, 
Bridle thy mad desires, lest they outrun 
Discretion's course and dash thee to defeat" .... 

On them King Minos gazed with wondering eye 
As swift they sailed through morn's auroral sky 
From him and Crete; then smote his breast with glee, 

As upward soared vain Icarus to the sun, «< 

To downward, headlong plunge, a wingless one. 
Into the jaws of the devouring sea. 



[ 130 ] 



THE DEEPEST POEM 

The deepest poem is the one we feel, 

And not the one that language can reveal; 

Oh, times there are when music stirs the soul 

Beyond mere words to measure or control, 

And myriad thoughts flit ghostlike through the brain 

That all the tongues of earth could never chain. 

Let artist paint with ne'er so deep a speech, 

Let poet sing with all that can beseech, 

Great worlds there are they cannot hope to reach ; — 

But souls like theirs are born to greatly live, 

And who may know what life on life may give? 



[ 131 ] 



THE BROOK 

(after theophile gautier) 

Between two stones, in shady nook, 
From spring that oozes near a lake. 
In merriest humor runs a brook 
As though some far-off goal to make. 

It murmurs: Oh, what joy is mine! 
Below the ground what night to see, 
And now my banks with verdure shine. 
While skies admire themselves in me. 

The azure myosotis cries 

To me. Forget me not, I pray ! 

I feel the tails of dragon-flies 

My bosom scratch in sportive play. 

From out my cup the bird drinks free; 
And after winding far, who knows 
But that the vales, rocks, towers will be 
Bathed by my wave that grandly flows? 



[ 132 ] 



I shall embroider with my spume 
The bridge and quay's granitic wall, 
And bear great steamers as they fume 
Toward ocean vast, the end of all. 

Thus talks the brook in chattering craze; 

In it a hundred projects grow; 

Like water boiling in a vase 

No self-restraint its soul can know. 

But tomb and cradle stand anear; 
The giant dies a pygmy small: 
To trouble born, the brook falls sheer 
Into the lake that drinks it all. 



[ 133 ] 



ROME 

A strange-eyed Eagle fiercely tore its way 
From out the breast of Latium, and began 
At once to feed upon the blood of man, 
And grow enormously from day to day. 

Its maddened craving nought had power to stay, 
Though down its throat the gore in rivers ran, 
And though so hugely grown its wings did span 
The world itself that trembled 'neath their sway. 

At last made weak from surfeiting on woes, 
And urged no more by War's infuriate cry. 
The monstrous thing was rended by its foes; 

And yet it died not, nor can ever die. 

For they that felt the mangling of its claw 
Still conquered lie beneath its deathless Law. 



[ 134 ] 



THE RUSSIAN BEAR 

(1905) 

How sinks his heart within his trembling frame, — 
This evil-breeding, monstrous Russian Bear, — 
As now he sees his plundered minions dare 
All deaths and agonies in Freedom's name ; 

As now he counts the crimsoned years of shame. 
That his engorging vultures of despair 
Have feasted on the children of his care. 
To blaze his deeds with infamy of fame. 

About him rage unconquerable fires. 

Blown by the breath of chainless, vast desires, 
While blood rolls round him in a mighty sea; 

From out whose seething foam God grant may rise. 
In newer strength, before his wondering eyes, 
The dazzling Goddess, hope-crowned Liberty. 



[ 135 ] 



IN A STUDIO 



SONNETS SUGGESTED BY PICTURES PAINTED BY 
WILLIAM KEITH 



This is his studio; here with brush and brain 
He fills the hours; and here unnumbered things 
Of beauty rise on Art's unwearied wings, 
To settle in the heart and there remain. 

Here Color leads her myriad-tinted train 
Through fadeless fields; in turn each season brings 
Its harvest; while Imagination flings 
Her gems amid the forest's mighty fane. 

O wondrous garden, where such wonders grow. 
Thou art, indeed, a place of bloom where dream, 
Upon ambrosia feeding, smiles at death; 

And where ensconced from life's tumultuous show, 
The soul, in joysome liberty supreme. 
Draws restful, uncontaminated breath. 



[ 138 ] 



SOUND AND COLOR 

(the painter speaks) 

Not only sound, but color, deeply lies 

Within this gong a Daimio made his own 
When glory claimed him in the years long-flown 
Ay, all the hues of seas, and lands, and skies; 

And now I thrill beneath its every tone, 
From war's horrific din to love's low sighs, 
Until my canvas in melodious guise 
A jewel seems on Music's throbbing zone. 

Ah, yesterday it struck a note so sweet. 
So suave and soft, I felt as ne'er before 
The gracious moonlight blessing all the earth; 

And now behold it in my picture beat! 

Canst thou not feel it strangely stealing o'er 
Thy soul with something of a newer birth? 



[139 



THE SHEPHERDESS 

How lightly fall the footsteps of the Day 
In nearing now the chambers of the west, 
As loth the woodland spirit to molest, 
That broods in quietude the hours away. 

And what of her on whom the shadows play? 
Is hopeless love her bosom's fearsome guest. 
Or tends she here the sheep, all unoppressed 
By weight of thought, and free of care as they? 

It matters not: she takes her radiant part 

With sky, and tree, and pool, in this fair scene 
Where Beauty gives her brood still newer sheen 

Beauty, the sovran sorceress of the heart. 
That garbs no less the tiniest blade of green 
Than grandest structure of the poet's art. 



[ 140 ] 



DAWN 

Alluring Night soft folds her starry wing, 
For now the sun beats down her vast array, 
As all along his unresisted way 
His dazzling brilliances their glory fling. 

These pulsing clouds announce the conqueror King; 
Yet not with banner blazed with ruby ray, 
But one whose opal light of lustrous gray 
Gives strange, fresh beauty to each dawn-kissed thing. 

The birds have scarce aroused, yet man is here, 
To lay the dewy grass beneath his knife, 
And bear it off upon the near-by wain. 

Thou wondrous New-born Day; what hope, what fear. 
Lie coiled within thy breast; what peace, what strife, 
And what ambitions that are worse than vain ! 



[141 



EVENSONG 

Day's glare and noise are done for you and me; 
Its dying glories tremble in the west; 
The stars are near; and Evening's tranquil rest 
With balmful softness fills the wood and lea. 

All shadeful lies the pool's untroubled breast 
Near where the shepherdess, full fair to see, 
Walks with her sheep as gently sighing she 
Builds fairy dreams of him beloved the best. 

And as the twilight slowly draws anear. 
What all-pervading tones we seem to hear 
As deep-voiced requiem to the parting day; 

For Nature's harmonies are soaring high 
In vesper hymn against the very sky, 
With dream and ecstasy to lead the way. 



[ 142 ] 



ON WATCHING THE ARTIST PAINT A 
PICTURE OF MOUNT SHASTA 

With what sure deftness do I see you rear 
This mass of Shasta in the azure air, 
Enrobing him with snow so purely fair, 
Unmelted it shall lie for many a year. 

And what huge boulders, glacier-carved, sprawl here, 
Impressed with sudden strength; while as we stare, 
Breathless and rapt, far pines uptowering dare 
The winding canyon's precipices sheer. 

Ah, mid this magic comes again the time 
When Shasta loomed before me day by day. 
And alway with a seeming new surprise; 

But where is she who in her beauty's prime 
Beheld with me his glory? — passed away 
Far from all reach of earthly ears and eyes. 



[ 143 ] 



A VISION 

Sweet Morn trips lightsomely along the sky, 
Awakening earth and all the things of air, 
Whose trees, joy-hearted, murmurous greetings bear 
To the far lake and bloom-gemmed grasses nigh. 

Some pigeons, snowy-white, encircling fly 

Above two maidens, — loveliest creatures there, — 
Who send their dreams on voyage calm and fair 
To Love's own harbors that resplendent lie, 

O blessed Morn ! — Thy wealth no garish day 
In heartless mock can ever take away, 
Nor these fond doves to ravening ravens turn. 

O fortunate maidens ! — Alien to all tears. 

Your beauty shall not fade, but brighter burn, 
To consecrate your Vision to the years. 



[ 144 ] 



THE RETURN FROM THE RAID 

With rapine glutted he returns once more, 
Trailed by his vulturine, marauding crew; 
But not the roisterous wassail to renew, 
Nor on some foe to lock the dungeon door; 

For lo, there loom, his blasted sight before, 
Consuming flames that all the sky imbue. 
To light his castle's ruins as they strew 
The scene that devastation revels o'er. 

When this bold knight rode forth to rob and slay, 
He sweetly sang a merry roundelay. 
Nor thought of her his baseness had betrayed; 

And now we fancy seated on a stone, 

Downfallen from its prideful tower, the lone. 
Distracted figure of a hapless maid. 



145 



THE MOUNTAIN 

What wrecks of Time and Storm are crumbling here! 
The rocks that seemed eternal shattered lie, 
And pines that sang their glorias to the sky 
In mute dismemberment stretch prone and drear. 

Beneath this gloomful shade, wide spreading near, 
What hidden things in loneliness may sigh. 
What spirits of the past may wander by, 
Their cheeks bedewed with unavailing tear! 

But look beyond: the towering summits glow 
With grand magnificence of dazzling light, 
That tints with rainbow hues their bosoming snow; 

And as we gaze, a more than mortal might 
Lifts the rapt soul from all the glooms below 
To faiths that blaze immaculately bright. 



146 



PRAYER 

All things here seem subdued to silent prayer; 
The clouds hang moveless in the sombre sky, 
The brook scarce whispers as it ripples by, 
And stilled the restless pulses of the air. 

The stately trees a fading splendor wear, 

As now the westering sun's last gleamings die 
Around a man, who views with saintly eye 
The vast distresses that his fellows bear. 

What centuried problems on this prophet weigh, 
As mid the myriad mysteries of it all 
Within this temple he is fain to pray! 

Here babbling laughter flees beyond recall. 
While grief, sore struck with pangs of countless years, 
Seems bending low above a bowl of tears. 



[ M7 ] 



PROMISE 

The shower has ceased, yet big with coming rain 

The light-fringed clouds loom o'er the gladsome hills, 
While all the sunbeam-glinted valley thrills 
With expectation of its harvest grain. 

This fresh, sweet soil but just upturned is fain 
Its seed to press; the orchard blossom spills 
Its fragrance round; and rising incense fills 
The air to gratitude's symphonic strain. 

O Earth, dear, bounteous mother of us all. 
From thee we come, and at the last we fall 
Into thy softly folding arms to rest; 

And as the Master spreads thy beauties here, 
We seem to lie serenely on thy breast, 
With Promise gently soothing every fear. 



148 



THE UNFINISHED PORTRAIT 

I cannot strike the color for this eye, 

Nor bend the arch above it ; — ah, to-day 
My brush's cunning, do the best I may, 
In heartless mockery seems to pass me by. 

Thus spake the Master as he stood anigh 
His easel, where a young man's portrait lay 
So near to perfectness it seemed to say. 
Give me not up ere once again you try. 

Then with a fury such as genius knows. 

He spread his pigments all that portrait o'er 
Until a landscape shone divinely there ; 

And in the glories of its great repose 
Imagination feels, as ne'er before, 
Some hidden spirit breathe through all its air. 



149 ] 



WILLIAM KEITH 

All bottomless his well of Beauty seems: 

For years his golden buckets have been drawn 

From out its depths, yet on, and yet still on, 

They rise full-brimmed with jewels of his dreams — 

Jewels whose infinitely-colored beams 

Reveal each way that Nature's feet have gone 
In blossoming joy from dawn to dewy dawn, 
Through skies and mountains, meadows, woods and 
streams. 

Ah, could the creatures he has painted stir 

With languaged voice, what paeans would they raise 
To their deep-loving, great interpreter. 

How feeble then would seem man's loudest praise 
For him who keeps bright youth within his heart. 
To newly lustre his unaging art. 



[ 150 ] 



ENVOY 



THE POET TO HIS PEGASUS 

Dear Pegasus, attempt no more to rise; 
'Tis all in vain ; — these uneff ectual wings, 
That once we deemed were storm-defying things. 
Fold now forever, if you dare be wise. . . . 

But what great dream was ours ! — ranging the skies, 
Attent to every melody that sings. 
Then drinking deep of Heliconian springs 
To build impassioned verse that never dies. . . . 

And now the Sonnet, that you fain would bear 
As best of all the muse-devoted fair, 
Despised and mocked, awaits her funeral pyre ; 

Where you may see, as with despairing heart 
You haul, hard straining, some brick-laden cart. 
Her lovely body crumbling in the fire. 



153 



SONG ITS OWN REWARD 

(to JOHN MUIr) 

Song is its own reward, so said to me 

My clear-eyed friend whose muse-inspired prose 
With joy of being sings as on it flows, 
Bearing the thoughts that teach us to be free; 

Thou shouldst not hush one note of Poesy 
That from Parnassian heights rejoicing blows, 
Though none of all the world its music knows. 
Or knowing cares for, saving only thee. 

O friend, thou nursling of the mountain's breast. 
True brother of the glacier and the pine, 
'Tis meet thy voice this lesson has impressed; 

For do not all these noble kin of thine 
Ring out forevermore their strains divine 
Though not one soul may hearken to be blest! 



[ 154 ] 



THE PASSION FOR PERFECTION 

What deep desires are ours, what searching pains, 
To find the word we so supremely need ; 
To frame a diction worthy Art's great meed, 
That winged with music bears immortal strains! 

Our thought when bound in rhythm oft contains 
Such teasing imperfections, that we feed 
The hours in their cure, then inly bleed. 
For fear some vexing blemish yet remains. . . . 

Dear nymph, Perfection, how thou dost elude 
Thy fond pursuer ! — seeming near, then far, 
Enticing ever with allurement sweet; 

Till after trial many a time renewed. 
He sees thee blaze a solitary star 
In some high, inaccessible retreat. 



155 



PINE NOT, NOR FRET 

Pine not, nor fret: 
The rains will fall. 
The sun will shine. 
The flowers still bloom. 
And grains and fruits 
Their riches yield ; 
The wheels will turn. 
And ever turn, 
And ships still sail. 
And ever sail. 
But do thy part. 
With faith and love. 
As best thou canst, 
And nought on earth 
Can work thee ill. 
Or make thee feel 
One pang of fear. 



[ 156 ] 



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